"Nezavisimaya Gazeta": "Compatibility test"
In politics
Last week Dmitry Medvedev delivered his eagerly expected address to the Federal Assembly. True, it prompted a fresh set of questions: did the President tell the public all he wanted to, or only what he could afford to tell?
Early this week it was clear, however, what he would certainly not mention in his address. He would not mention his attitude to the death penalty in general and Russia's failure to honour its commitment to abolish it. The Constitutional Court had pretended that it needed a lot of time to respond to the elementary query from the Supreme Court. The Kremlin's reaction was swift: anything the President might say on the topic in his Address could be perceived as bringing pressure on the independent judiciary.
To recap, the Supreme Court asked the question: would death sentences be permitted as of January 1 or not? The Constitutional Court was expected to reply swiftly in the negative, because as long as the State Duma has not renounced ratification of Protocol 6 abolishing the death penalty, its provisions are de facto in force in Russia. However, the Constitutional Court launched a prolonged study, thus deftly relieving Medvedev of the duty to make any official statements on the matter. But here is an interesting twist. It is unclear whether the Constitutional Court had resorted to this trick after a nudge from the Kremlin or whether somebody else had recommended it to do it. For example, the man whose whim was the only reason why the Constitutional Court moved to St Petersburg a couple of years ago. It is still unclear what role Prime Minister Vladimir Putin plays in determining the content of the presidential addresses. Last year Medvedev himself was at pains to convince everyone that he and Putin together thought up the amendments to the Constitution. There had been talk that this was not entirely the case.
What about this year? Has Putin contributed anything positive to the Address or did he, this time around, concentrate on blocking the initiatives he considered to be undesirable? For example, the presidential appeal to the State Duma to ratify Protocol No.6. Or the negative assessment of the performance of the Interior Ministry. Last week the campaign to discredit police chiefs of various ranks gained further momentum. One cannot rule out that it was launched with Medvedev's address in mind. However, the final version of the address made no reference to the matter.
All this brings us back to the personal chemistry between the two members of the ruling tandem. Medvedev recently said the tandem was as strong as ever, although he did admit in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that some quarters were trying to break the tandem. He never named these quarters. Not that he needed to. For example, on November 12 even a political innocent could observe Putin's surprise at the hail of instructions to the Government and at Medvedev's words to the effect that our country still lives at the expense of the Soviet past and has accomplished nothing new over the last twenty years. The more advanced members of the public enjoy watching Putin's response. In general, he has been behaving as if the election campaign was about to get underway. He publicly discusses with his party the issue of the vertical chain of command of his public reception offices, a skeleton structure for the future electoral headquarters. He refuses to meet the leaders of opposition parties because he doesn't want to hear their complaints about the behaviour of his own United Russia. And think of his dropping by on Saturday at the festival of rap, break dance and the healthy way of life. Putin once said that he and Medvedev were of the same blood. Medvedev replied that although blood groups were determined by tests, they certainly were thinking alike. Last week it became obvious that this is not the case. Medvedev does not think like Putin. Whether Putin thinks like Mr Medvedev will become clear very soon. On November 21 the Prime Minister is to report to the Congress of United Russia Party on the post-crisis development of Russia. That would be a real compatibility test for the members of the tandem.