Does the Putin-Medvedev 'tandemocracy' still have wheels? Graphic credit: Global Voices Online
Currently feted as a hero of 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev’s views on his home-country are unreportable, a leading Russian journalist told a recent Washington meeting. Not due to media censorship, he added, but because his comments on the way recent local elections were conducted were so rife with obscenities that they had to be bleeped out on a news website.
The most polite comments the former Soviet leader expressed were that the local elections were a sham, and “a crime” and that the ruling United Russia party reminds him of the CPSU.
Gorbachev’s views reflect a recognition within elite circles that Russia is stifled by an “outdated, thoroughly corrupt” power structure.
“The levels of corruption are, quite frankly, insane – pure evil,” a business journalist told the meeting. President Dmitri Medvedev has made laudable statements on the need to curb corruption and end legal nihilism, but he is in no position to act upon them.
Medvedev’s remarkable denunciation of Stalin – on the presidential blog, no less – confirms that there is considerable freedom of expression in Russia, but only within the elite. The real problem is with the prevailing social apathy and cynicism of mass public opinion, with “those who don’t know what they don’t know.”
There are clear divisions between the elite’s competing clans, but there are no constitutional constraints on the dominant siloviki factions and no safeguards to protect critics or opponents from their utterly ruthless use of violence. They have deeply infiltrated Russian business and are openly contemptuous of the rule of law.
Anna Politkovskaya’s murderer was recently issued a new passport even though he is at the top of Interpol’s and the Russian Federation’s Most Wanted lists.
One leading journalist took solace from recent developments, including the popular campaign against the erection of the Gazprom tower in St. Petersburg, the end to mandatory pre-trial detention, and Novaya Gazeta’s court victory against Stalin’s grandson, who had sued the paper for calling the dictator a “bloodthirsty butcher.”
Another highlighted the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Caucasus, marked by Moscow’s diminishing authority, a marked lack of federal control, severe human rights violations, an increasing number of terrorist incidents and growing public support for secession. While the leader of Dagestan has shown some integrity, launching genuine anti-corruption initiatives and reaching out to the relatives of those killed and kidnapped, he remains the exception to the norm.
The visiting journalists differed on their assessment of prospects for change and particularly on the likely impact of younger generations.
Some are encouraged by the prospects of a “brain upgrade” amongst younger Russians using participatory forms of new media, albeit for non-political reasons, and less contaminated by the Soviet legacy, who recognize that they “can be both decent and successful.”
But others point to attitude surveys which suggest that the Putin generation is by some measures more authoritarian and nationalist in attitude than older generations.
There is little chance of intra-elite schisms presenting opportunities for a democratic opening the meeting heard. Putin and Medvedev are “on the same team, but represent different generations and approaches”. The latter is formulating an impressive presidential agenda, as if he were preparing to run for office in a genuine election, but actually implementing any of them is a distant prospect.
As the Nixon Center’s Paul Saunders and Dimitri Simes note, the 2012 presidential election will likely prove decisive in the shaky tandemocracy, though the election will be less significant than the preceding decision as to which of them stands:
Most believe the choice is still Putin’s, but Medvedev’s supporters hope that Putin won’t fight back if they mount a real challenge. The closer the election comes, the greater the pressure on Russia’s elite to choose sides.
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