Putin Insures Himself against Failures
Vladimir Putin's Cabinet is destined to be the most open of all, and the most loyal toward the other power branches and institutions of civil society. One can read it between the lines of his address to parliament as it appointed him Prime Minister on May 8. If his is to be a "technical government", the way it was under previous Prime Ministers, Putin will be unable to implement the ambitious plans he has drawn for Russia.
His address to the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, allows conjectures on how the government will work with the President and the Duma. First, the Prime Minister will stress who is the boss again and again. The President is the principal ruler of Russia according to its Constitution and long-established tradition. This was how Putin explained, for instance, the absence of consultations with parliamentary party leaders, envisaged by the procedure of prime-ministerial authorization: "We have a grand celebration tomorrow, so the President thinks that all formalities must be finished today." That was the first occasion on which Prime Minister Putin referred to Dmitry Medvedev as President in public.
Second, Putin is determined to have the greatest possible publicity in decision-making-at least where economic and social policies are concerned. He has proposed to establish a new consultative body for well-pondered decisions, with permanent membership for Government and State Duma members. "It is clear to me that a government cannot be truly strong and effective unless it fully rests on the legislative authority," he said on Thursday. As we know, Putin did not need to flirt with parliamentarians to score votes necessary for his confirmation to the prime-ministerial post.
Putin needs openness to maintain public confidence in him. This could prove difficult if the people open their hearts to Dmitry Medvedev. The Soviet Union went through a similar situation when Nikita Khrushchev was dismissed, and Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin shared the posts of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and the Prime Minister. "Brezhnev needed two or three years to take the upper hand," says Alexei Makarkin, deputy general director of the Center for Political Technologies.
"Putin promises closer cooperation with the State Duma to shift decision-making from the Kremlin to the Government," says Yelena Sharipova, senior economist at Renaissance Capital. Putin equally needs openness and readiness to discuss every problem with parliament and the public so that the ruling elite and the population share the blame with him in case of failure. "To all appearances, much of the Government's plans will not be implemented, so Putin is ready to show how communicative he is, and create an illusion of taking account of the opinions of the Duma opposition and civil society," says Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the Institute of National Strategy.
Author: Rustem Falyakhov
