Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Dmitry Medvedev confidently won the Russian presidential election yesterday. |
Implications | Although some Western observers are concerned about electoral fraud, Medvedev's victory is safe from domestic challenges. |
Outlook | Medvedev is the best possible choice from the available presidential successors for the West, although he will not be shaping Russian policy alone, at least in the short term. |
The political transfer of power that has dominated the minds and actions of all those related to Russia for the last two years at least, is over.
The Kremlin can sigh with relief: its man has steered the poll smoothly, bringing back 70.22% of the ballots, or the support of 49.7 million voters. The other runners' results were not nearly as good (see table).
Russian Presidential Election, March 2008 | |
Candidate | Vote (%) |
Dmitry Medvedev | 70.22 |
Gennady Ziuganov | 17.77 |
Vladimir Zhirinovsky | 9.37 |
Andrei Bogdanov | 1.29 |
Total Turnout | 69.62 |
International commentators are concerned with what they see as high turnout figures, treating them as a suspicious indication of electoral fraud. Foreign observers did not attend the elections, over an unresolved dispute with the Russian authorities about the observers' mandate. Opponents of the Kremlin are right to point out the unfair distribution of media coverage time between the candidates, and the vast discrepancy in resources they administered.
The bottom line is, however, that even with all the fraudulent elements taken out, the Kremlin's candidate would still have won. First, there is a fair amount of genuine public support for the Russian government, as people attribute their improved living standards to them, rightly or wrongly (there is an argument that the foundations of Russia's economic success were laid in the late years of president Boris Yeltsin's rule, rather than by Vladimir Putin's team). Second, in a country where party politics does not play as much of a class and social differentiation role as in the West, other candidates could not offer any notable alternative to Medvedev's promise of continued economic success. Their manifestos essentially boiled down to the promises of redistribution in favour of the poor (the Communist party leader Gennady Ziuganov), "teaching the U.S. a lesson" (liberal democratic party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky), and Russia's winning the World Cup in football (Andrei Bogdanov). None of the disgruntled candidates, including those of a more radical stance towards the Kremlin who were barred from the race, can take people onto the streets to contest the election result. Hence, all the international and domestic protest is mere inconsequential rhetoric unable to affect the Putin-Medvedev succession at the Kremlin.
Kremlin's New Boss
Dmitry Medvedev will be inaugurated on 7 May as president, and Vladimir Putin will assume the role of prime minister, in an official scenario. There is little doubt that Putin picked Medvedev, 13 years his junior, as a weak and reliable partner to assure his own unhindered premiership. A civilian lawyer by training, who has spent most of the professional career in state administration, Medvedev indeed shows at present more of the qualities of a diligent executive than of a power-hungry politician. Few have been able to resist the temptations of power, however, especially those of being the ultimate decision-maker and arbiter in one of the world's most formidable states. Even if not corrupted by power, Medvedev is more likely to grow into a strong political leader than to vanish into obscurity under Putin's glimmering halo. Many bored observers entertain a theory of Putin's return to presidency before or at least after the end of Medvedev's term. Global Insight, on the contrary, forecasts a waning Putin and waxing Medvedev leadership in Russia (see Russia: 29 February 2008: Election 2008: Outcome May Be a Foregone Conclusion, but Consequences for Russia Are Far-Reaching).
Outlook and Implications
Dmitry Medvedev is the West's best choice among all of Putin's possible successors in the Kremlin. He comes from the liberal camp, and has already made pronouncements that are music to foreign investors' ears; they have included administrative reform to fight corruption, improvement of legislation in a business-friendly way and patching up ties with the West through dialogue. The question is whether Medvedev will have enough administrative backing to carry those reforms through. His ability to fend off the rising wave of nationalism in Russia will also be critical for Russia's relations with its international partners, and for the investment environment for foreigners at home, especially in the natural resources sector. With Medvedev and Russia, it is a soft man against a hard state, and one can only hope that the outcome of the engagement will prove amicable to the world. For the next year or two, however, Russia will be open for business as usual as the transfer of management takes place in practice and for real.