Party life in Russia is sizzling. I am not talking about the purge of the ranks of the United Russia party and the brainwashing of its members. I am referring to a very curious precedent: Vladimir Putin has taken to holding meetings with the leaders of parliamentary parties.
There is nothing unusual about the Prime Minister meeting with the Duma deputies and discussing the agenda for the next parliamentary session. But, first, the Prime Minister summons the Duma deputies to his Novo-Ogaryovo residence. The deputies, including fierce opponents from the Communist Party, not to speak of the Liberal Democrats, duly show up to pay obeisance to him. Second, at these meetings Putin wears two hats, one of the Prime Minister and another of the leader of the biggest parliamentary party. That sets a new precedent.
For all the nuances (the leader of United Russia does not attend Duma sessions and indeed is not formally a member of his party), when in the course of such meetings with the leaders of Duma parties the Prime Minister compares representation of United Russia in the regions with that of other parties, that is an obvious sign of moving towards a parliamentary republic.
But in Russia things are never that simple. Dmitry Medvedev said recently that a parliamentary republic is a political fad which isn't right for Russia, or at least won't be right for some time.
So, what is one to believe? I think such discrepancies will keep cropping up, reflecting the dual nature of Russian leadership today. Before Putin, the Prime Minister in Russia was less than a prime minister, and now he is much more than a prime minister.
I will repeat what I have written already: Putin's main power lever is one that no other Russian prime minister had before him, namely the possibility (perhaps for him even the necessity) of building a vertical party power structure.
That explains the obvious contradiction. In terms of his political views, Putin is even less inclined than Medvedev to increase the powers of parliament in Russia, let alone set the goal of turning Russia from a presidential into a parliamentary republic. All the convenient references to the non-parliamentary history of Russia are abstract theory designed to further a concrete political interest. The fact is that the current political structure has proved to be an effective catapult that can deliver to the Olympus the person chosen by a very narrow group of people. As regards the vertical party power structure, that is the necessary safety net: if Putin intends to return to the Kremlin it may come in handy; without it no Russian prime minister is immune to any president's rule by edict. The vertical party power structure - the prime minister's and not the president's - is, whatever one might say, a step towards a parliamentary republic. So the net result is that although both Russian leaders try to give parliamentarism the wide berth because the development of democracy complicates transfer of power, the institutions of a parliamentary republic are essential to ensure a real and not token balance of forces between them.