Upcoming elections in Russia
First there are reports that a third term for Putin has again been proposed by a legislator.Putin's Third Term To Feature In Duma Campaign
"Sergei Mironov -- the freshly reelected speaker of the Federation Council and the leader of the young pro-Kremlin party A Just Russia -- suggested in late March that the Russian Constitution be amended to extend the president's time in office from two to three consecutive terms."
Then, Robert Coalson's analysis article about Russian politics on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty web site offers a more conspiratorial idea about how to keep Putin in office and some good fodder for asking students to identify and evaluate assumptions and generalizations about government and politics. And, of course, one of the ways to evaluate those assumptions is to compare Russia to other political systems.
Russia: The Political Advantages Of Instability
"'Establishing stability' appears prominently on almost anyone's list of the achievements of Russian President Vladimir Putin's two terms in office...
"Putin's achievements have been largely bolstered by his staggeringly high personal popularity ratings... and a generally favorable global political and economic environment for Russia.
"The greatest challenge Putin has faced in his seven years at the helm has been controlling the situation in the North Caucasus and ending the vicious wave of terrorist attacks that swept through Russia in the decade ending in September 2004. Putin has been largely successful in this...
"Now, however, Russia enters a period fraught with danger for any personality-based political system -- elections and the transfer of power...
"At present, the front-runners in the race are the two first deputy prime ministers, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov...
"In recent months, Russian political analysts have agonized over the fact that the so-called siloviki -- the section of the political elite that is bound by ties to the intelligence and security structures and is widely believed to be centered around Putin's deputy chief of staff, Igor Sechin (right) -- does not back either Medvedev or Ivanov. "Increasingly, they are speculating the siloviki could play the role of spoiler as Putin attempts a managed power transition -- a role they fear could easily undermine the surprisingly fragile 'vertical of power' that Putin has built so assiduously in the past few years...
"It would not be hard to argue that the weakening of the vertical of power or even the collapse of the 'entire system' created by Putin would not be a bad thing -- if not for the wild card of the siloviki, since the stability ushered in by Putin is a decided liability for their political fortunes...
"Observers... [have] pointed to the recent high-profile murders of Central Bank Deputy Chairman Andrei Kozlov, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, and former Federal Security Service security agent Aleksandr Litvinenko as signs of the direction developments in Russia could take if a powerful section of the elite begins to see its political advantage in increased fear and instability...
"Since Sechin and the siloviki do not seem to have placed their support behind any possible successor, speculation is mounting that their real goal is to compel Putin to accept a third term and thereby extend the status quo. An editorial in Kommersant-Vlast in January argued bluntly that Sechin's group could force Putin to remain in office by destabilizing the situation in the North Caucasus. Political consultant Gleb Pavlovsky, writing on kreml.org in January, argued the siloviki could be plotting a policy of 'managed destabilization.'
"However, the institutional weakness of the Russian political system -- which remains heavily centered on Putin's personal popularity -- and the superficial nature of the imposed stability that has emerged in the North Caucasus in the last two years means that 'managed' destabilization could quickly become unmanageable. And if it does, Russia and many in the international arena could find themselves relieved if Putin does agree to stay on for a few more years..."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:57 AM
1 Comments:
If you want to know more about the siloviki, here's a good article:
"Although the Kremlin factions likely number between two and 10... there are believed to be three primary groups. They are commonly referred to as the liberals, technocrats, and the siloviki... The liberals, led by Economic Development and Trade Minister German Gref and Finance Minister Aleksei Kurdin, are defined by their shared approach to economic policy... This group, generally comprised of economists and former business people, is considered the weakest of the three. The technocrats are led by First Deputy Prime Minister and Gazprom chairman Dmitry Medvedev and Gazprom president Aleksei Miller. This group's congtrol of Gazprom... gives it significant influence on all policy matters.
"The third group, the siloviki, is probably the most powerful... The most commonly encountered description of the siloviki, a group of current and former intelligence officers from... St. Petersburg who wield immense power within the Kremlin and control key sectors of the Russian economy, is both incomplete and misleading. The siloviki clan's core members -- Igor Sechin... Viktor Ivanov... and Nikolai Patrushev, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) -- more or less fit this profile. Surrounding these powerbrokers, however, is a network of individuals who do not. Associates of Sechin, Ivanov, and Patrushev hold top positions not only in the Kremlin and government ministries, but also in the second tier of the bureaucracy, state-owned enterprises, and private companies..."
Bremmer, Ian and Samuel Charap, "The Siloviki in Putin's Russia: Who They are and What They Want," The Washington Quarterly, Winter 2006-07
Post a Comment
<< Home