Putin Trying to "Filter" His Way to Re-Election

Nikolay Petrov Op-Ed December 22, 2011 The Moscow Times
Summary
During his annual televised call-in show, Vladimir Putin proposed to reinstate the direct election of governors, which is perhaps the only serious political concession that he is offering.
Related Topics
Related Media and Tools
 
  • Email

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held his annual televised call-in show 1 1/2 weeks after the State Duma elections and just five days after the nationwide wave of protests contesting them.

Putin failed in his attempts to explain exactly why he is returning as president. His 4 1/2-hour conversation with "the people," a mixture of concessions and verbal attacks, confirmed the belief that it is hard for a 59-year-old leader to change, especially after 12 years in power. Putin did not put forward a presidential program, only a plan for becoming president.

For the first time, both well-known and lesser-known individuals sang Putin's praises in an effort to demonstrate the national leader's many talents to voters. They included former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, conductor Valery Gergiyev, Zavtra newspaper editor-in-chief Alexander Prokhanov, film directors Nikita Mikhalkov and Fyodor Bondarchuk, doctor Leonid Roshal, television celebrities Vladimir Solovyov and Pavel Astakhov and various pro-Kremlin politicians.

One of Putin's more interesting proposals was to reinstate the direct election of governors — albeit with various provisions and limitations. That is perhaps the only serious political concession that Putin is offering. This is not much of a concession given that only the political parties with seats in parliament would have the right to put forward gubernatorial candidates and the president would retain veto power over them. Putin calls this a "filter," but the best filter, of course, would really be real direct elections.

During his call-in program, Putin fielded calls from fewer regions than usual: Tyumen, Vladivostok, St. Petersburg, Stavropol, Sochi and Nizhny Tagil. It is noteworthy that three cities in which Putin has invested significant time and money — St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Sochi — did not support United Russia in the elections. The reason for this is clear: Voters know perfectly well that the authorities are only investing in huge projects in those cities to enhance their own status and not for the benefit of local residents. That also means Putin's practice of allocating money for projects in the regions during the past year — in what has essentially been a re-election campaign — might ultimately backfire on him.

Finally, it is important for the Kremlin to convey the idea that citizens voted against United Russia to get rid of unpopular governors. In this regard, it was odd that in a letter ostensibly written by unhappy residents of Ulyanovsk that was read on the program, the authors name a whole laundry list of governors whom they claim were appointed in an "obvious staffing error." The only person conspicuously absent from this list was Ulyanovsk Governor Sergei Morozov. That list includes Governors Dmitry Mezentsev of Irkutsk, Pavel Ipatov of Saratov, Ilya Mikhalchuk of Arkhangelsk, Vasily Yurchenko of Novosibirsk, Andrei Nelidov of Karelia and Anatoly Brovko of Volgograd.

The letter from the "enlightened citizens of Ulyanovsk" didn't not end there. Primorye Governor Sergei Darkin earned a special mention among those charged with corruption. But it is unlikely that the Kremlin will dismiss any of these governors before the presidential election. More likely, the letter was intended as a harsh reminder to governors to not forget their main function: to increase voter support for Putin in the March election.

This article originally appeared in The Moscow Times.

Source: http://carnegie.ru/2011/12/22/putin-trying-to-filter-his-way-to-re-election/eqea

More from The Global Think Tank

In Fact

 

70%

of oil consumed in the United States

is for the transportation sector.

20%

of Chechnya’s pre-1994 population

has fled to different parts of the world.

58%

of oil consumed in China

was from foreign sources in 2012.

32

million cases pending

in India’s judicial system.

20

million people killed

in Cold War conflicts.

18%

of the U.S. economy

is consumed by healthcare.

$536

billion in goods and services

traded between the United States and China in 2012.

$100

billion in foreign investment and oil revenue

have been lost by Iran because of its nuclear program.

4700%

increase in China’s GDP per capita

between 1972 and today.

$11

billion have been spent

to complete the Bushehr nuclear reactor in Iran.

2%

of Iran’s electricity needs

is all the Bushehr nuclear reactor provides.

82

new airports

are set to be built in China by 2015.

78

journalists

were imprisoned in Turkey as of August 2012 according to the OSCE.

67%

of the world's population

will reside in cities by 2050.

16

million Russian citizens

are considered “ethnic Muslims.”

Stay In The Know

Enter your email address in the field below to receive the latest Carnegie analysis in your inbox!

Personal Information
 
 
Carnegie Moscow Center
 
16/2 Tverskaya Moscow, 125009 Russia
Phone: +7 495 935-8904 Fax: +7 495 935-8906
Please note...

You are leaving the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy's website and entering another Carnegie global site.

请注意...

你将离开清华—卡内基中心网站,进入卡内基其他全球中心的网站。