Why It Matters : Enter the Russian (Teddy) Bear

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Enter the Russian (Teddy) Bear

Owen Matthews

Vladimir Putin has made his choice: today he anointed Dmitry Medvedev as his chosen successor as president of Russia. With his customary knack for wrong-footing Kremlin watchers – and even apparently some members of his own inner circle - Putin made the announcement that he was backing his young ally with no preamble and little fanfare. And given Putin's personal popularity (close to 80% by some polls), the Kremlin's bear total control of Russia's electronic media and the lack of any serious political opposition, Medvedev's election next March is close to certain. An informal straw poll of Newsweek's rolodex of well-connected Russian journalists, lawyers and politicians today came up with a single answer – no-one had spoken to anyone who had even hinted that Putin's choice would be made so soon. There had been only one hint. Two weeks before the Parliamentary elections last week, a directive was issued to executives of Russia's state-run television stations canceling all leave and asking top newsreaders and editors not to leave on long foreign vacations in December and over New Year. Clearly the Kremlin was preparing to make some kind of announcement of Putin's successor well before the March presidential elections. But Putin, like the former spy that he is, kept news of exactly who it would be an absolute secret till the last minute.

Medvedev and Putin go back a long way. They met at the law faculty of St Petersburg State University, where they shared a thesis supervisor. Medvedev was confirmed as a member of Putin's inner circle when he was invited to Moscow to manage Putin's first election campaign in 2000 – though campaign is not really the word for Putin's accession to power as Yeltsin's chosen successor, opposed only by the weak Communists. Most recently, Medvedev has been Putin's chief of staff and chairman of Gazprom; since last year he has overseen Putin's big-spending "national programs" in education, health and housing as first deputy prime minister.

"I have known him for more than 17 years, I have worked with him very closely all these years, and I fully and completely support this candidacy," Putin announced today at a weirdly staged meeting with representatives of United Russia – the Kremlin-created party which swept the polls last weekend – as well as notionally opposition parties A Just Russia, the Agrarian Party and Civil Force. In nationally televised remarks, the Party leaders suggested Medvedev's name, Putin paused for a moment as though in thought, and then went on to give his endorsement of the Parties' 'choice'. "We have the chance to form a stable government. And not just a stable government, but one that will carry out the course that has brought results for all of the past eight years," said Putin – a clear reference to his own stated intention to retain an influential position in Russian politics after Putin steps down at the end of his second and constitutionally final presidential term next March.

Medvedev, a 42-year-old former lawyer, doesn't look like the kind of man who will resent having Putin as a backseat driver. On the contrary, he always goes out of his way in public speeches to praise Putin and underscore his own status as a loyal acolyte. Press coverage of the two clear Putin favorites – Medvedev and his fellow deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov – was always scrupulously even-handed. Kremlin pool reporters joke that if you closed your eyes on an Ivanov field trip, you'd hear clanging, banging and ringing because he was always going off to nuclear reactors, aircraft factories and mines. With Medvedev, you'd hear purring, clucking and mewing, because he would go to farms. "Ivanov was Putin for boys, Medvedev was Putin for girls," jokes Mikhail Fishman, Kremlin reporter for Russian Newsweek.

There's an important point behind the joke: it could have been so much worse. Ivanov was usually cast as an arch-silovik, or FSB hawk, by the Western press. That was a little unfair, because though he was indeed a former FSB colleague of Putin's, Ivanov was still far more liberal than many of the real siloviki in the Kremlin and the FSB proper. Yet there is no such ambiguity about Medvedev: he has never been (as far as we know) a KGB man, and to judge from his speeches at the World Economic Forum at Davos, and his statements as deputy PM, he appears an unequivocal economic liberal who views Russia as part of a globalized world with which it must engage. That's not so say he'll be a pushover – but at least his anointing signals a drawing back from some of the more draconian tendencies of the growing Putin era police state, such as harassment of opposition activists, support for nationalist youth groups and ever-tighter media censorship.

That's the hope, at least. The danger is that Medvedev will prove too weak to keep a lid on the simmering rivalries between various Kremlin factions as they duke it out over control of lucrative businesses. It's also possible that Putin may also be planning a return to power at the next presidential elections, using Medvedev as a pliable stand in to keep his throne warm. But all of those dangers pale in comparison to the threat posed by disorder. Most Russians breathed a massive sigh of relief today when they heard the news. For the first time in a turbulent generation, Russians face the prospect of the handover of power to a new leader who appears to be predictable, safe and unthreatening. If Yeltsin was a growling, unstable bear of a man, then Medvedev, physically a short and unimposing fellow, resembles nothing so much as a teddy bear. And that's exactly what the Russians want right now – Putin in the background, a cuddly new president in the foreground, and of course an unending stream of free oil money to keep the whole country stable and happy.

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Member Comments

Posted By: vilsonchik (January 15, 2008 at 10:36 PM)

Wow. Has Newsweek never thought to run a rough draft like this past an editor before posting articles? How can you take anything this man says seriously when he writes like a junior high student?

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Posted By: Braes (December 12, 2007 at 12:07 AM)

I thought Ivanov would follow. I wish Russia well. (Not every American is a Neo-Con)

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Posted By: Jeffim Kuznetsov (December 11, 2007 at 7:41 PM)

Your article is just spewing with hatred and ideology! very typical of the western propaganda. as if you are speaking the ultimate truth! well, you got it wrong before! what makes you think you got it right this time?

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