“Vedomosti”: “For granny and for VAZ”
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used his live phone-in television programme to tout the government's economic achievements and did not rule out that he would take part in 2012 elections.
Unlike last year's video linkup when neither the moderator, nor the Prime Minister, nor the citizens used the word "crisis" the word was bandied about during yesterday's "Conversation with Vladimir Putin", but mainly in the context of the government's measures to cope with the crisis. Setting another record in terms of duration (four hours instead of three) Putin answered a hail of questions from the workers of the enterprises he had visited during the past year. He told the workers of the Amur Ship-Building Plant which was nationalized this year, that the budget had released a subsidy in the amount of 17 billion roubles and chaffed Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov for still not having made up his mind as to whether the plant should build project 20 380 corvettes. AvtoVAZ, the Prime Minister warned, should not become a "screwdriver assembly plant" and should keep its Lada brand. The Prime Minister mentioned that the government would lend the plant 50 billion roubles through Rostekhnologii (Russian Technologies). He confirmed an earlier pledge of 50 billion roubles to RZhD, but made no new concrete promises.
OAK (the United Aircraft Building Corporation) will be given "a few billion" and will get help in restructuring its debts, while metallurgists were simply promised "support", but without the allocation of cash.
The Prime Minister showed concern for old-age pensioner Yelena Golubeva whose house had been damaged during the terrorist attack on the Neva Express train: RZhD will double her pension and help her move to live with her relatives.
On foreign policy, Putin focused on issues connected with economics: WTO and loans to Belarus. There was only one purely political issue: the Prime Minister said he was on good terms with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, but this did not mean he supported her in the presidential race. Besides, United Russia Party has a special relationship with the Party of Regions (led by Tymoshenko's rival, Viktor Yanukovich).
Asked about the 2012 presidential election in Russia, Putin said he would "think about" taking part but then the election is still a long way away. Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in Rome yesterday, when asked by an Italian journalist to comment on Putin's remark, said he too would think about running in the 2012 elections.
The KPRF lawyer Vadim Solovyov noted that United Russia was mentioned six times. Putin did not name the party but he referred to "our party" and mentioned its projects. KPRF will demand from the CEC additional air time for Gennady Zyuganov.
The question of dealing out government money of course goes down better with the population than the modernization slogans the President proposed in his address to parliament, says sociologist Alexei Grazhdankin.
One gets the impression that the script, featuring "the father of the nation" answering down-to-earth questions, was deliberately designed to contrast the Prime Minister's image to that of the President, political scientist Alexander Kynev believes. Unlike Vladimir Putin's answers, Dmitry Medvedev's address was long on pathos and short on specifics. On the whole, live phone-in TV programmes are made by inertia and the need to change the format is obvious, Kynev concludes.
Alexei Nikolsky; Yevgenia Kholmogorova
