President Medvedev's media quotation index outstrips Vladimir Putin's for the first time.
The past two months have seen signs of a change in the media coverage of the Medvedev-Putin tandem, according to Medialogy company.
At the start of the year the Prime Minister held the lead in media coverage. On two occasions he upstaged the President. Both occasions, although related to the economy, were closely linked with international politics, thought to be the President's prerogative.
In the first case it was the resolution of the gas conflict. The middle of January saw the Prime Minister's triumph. For all the drawbacks of the solution, which sometimes looked half-hearted and ambivalent, it was Mr Putin who undoubtedly was orchestrating the game. The gas conflict blew up in the country generating massive PR, although it was unclear why the problems of a major private company in which the Government had a stake, suddenly became national problems. So much so that the Prime Minister had to devote himself entirely to the solution of these problems.
The next spike in Mr Putin quote index occurred at the end of January in connection with his Davos speech. Observers note that although the Russian Prime Minister's speech was in some ways reminiscent of his famous Munich speech, it was generally much more conciliatory because of the unfolding crisis. True, at that time the crisis was seen in Russia as something that arose across the ocean and had nothing to do with the Russian reality. The Prime Minister did not conceal his irritation over the shortsightedness of "American friends", who "as late as a year ago were speaking about cloudless development and prospects for the world economy."
Throughout January Mr Medvedev was in the shadow of his colleague in the tandem, however, his quotation index picked up in February. The Prime Minister was briefly in the lead on February 9, when he made a statement urging the need to increase pensions, but then fell behind again.
Mr Medvedev's index surged in connection with the appointment of four new Governors. Only one of them had served out his term. Mr Medvedev chose not to gloss over the reasons why the others were dismissed. He said significantly: "This does not mean that we will turn a blind eye, for example, to negligence in the work or plain incompetence and sloppiness in the activities of office holders. In this situation, unfortunately, you cannot pat them on the back and say, ‘Come on, put your act together, serious decisions will need to be made', if directives and laws adopted earlier are not fulfilled."
The President sounded even more resolute addressing an enlarged meeting of the State Council Presidium in Irkutsk on February 19. The crisis, he said, is the best time for getting rid of inefficient state administrators, including bureaucrats. By the end of the month it had become clear that the crisis, first, was not engineered by hostile external forces and, second, would last in Russia much longer than the Government and the people initially thought.
The Governors, said Mr Medvedev, should not count on leniency: "No excuses will be accepted." After hearing the complaints of the regional bosses, many of whom felt that the centre was trying to make them bear the brunt of anti-crisis regulation, Mr Medvedev agreed with them as far as complaints about some federal bureaucrats were concerned. However, he sternly remarked that "the regions are not without fault either." It is notable that while Mr Putin assumed a higher profile in the international sphere in January, Mr Medvedev scored points in February when he attended to domestic problems. Again, he behaved in a Putin-like manner and resorted to tough rhetoric.
This seems to belie the view that juxtaposes the President to the Prime Minister. Of course, Mr Medvedev is quoted more frequently today than Mr Putin. However, there have been no signs of any differences of approach to problems.
It is another question that there have been more frequent occasions when the President's directives were ignored by those to whom they were addressed. As this newspaper has reported, Government members do not rush to fulfil the President's instructions and indeed sometimes try to challenge them, as when the President attempted to change the taxation system in the coal industry.
Frequent references in the media in times of crisis can cut both ways. A politician who is constantly on the screen in a difficult moment for the country can easily attract negative attention, especially when social tensions grow. So, Mr Putin keeping a low profile until times change for the better may be a shrewd strategic move.
This article uses a review of the media from January 1 through February 24, 2009. The data were made available to Nezavisimaya Gazeta by the information-analytical system Medialogy.
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Putin's low profile may be strategically good for him
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