Exactly two years ago Vladimir Putin came in first in the early presidential race. Boris Yeltsin stepped down leaving the country to a virtually unknown man, not particularly charismatic, a man from the security services. The man became popular all at once. The voters never expected or demanded a program from Putin. It was not that he was different. He was young, energetic. Not from the Family. Nothing has changed in this respect over the last two years. Putin is still popular, trusted, and nothing is demanded from him. Putin immediately became associated with an energetic leader. This is the image he has retained. This is good from the point of view of political stability. It is not so good since society put all initiative in a single pair of hands. Let him do right by us. Putin is doing his honest best.
One thing Putin lacks is a team of professionals. The problem is becoming all the more pressing as the inertia of the socially passive post-Soviet society becomes more and more apparent. Putin is pointedly trying not to become another Napoleon, General Peron, Peter the Great, or Alexander II i.e. an authoritarian reformist. It certainly seems that he wants the grass root mechanisms to start working "constructively".
Neither does Putin have any considerable social foundation behind him - something like a party, a caste, or young reformers. He lacks something to dip into in search for professionals. There is no "Putin's party" in the sense of generation of new ideas or ideology.
Putin has been combing one "personnel field" for the last two years. The yield is scrimpy. It is clearly impossible to find enough competent administrators in St. Petersburg or in the KGB-FSS only. In the first place, however, this is the sectors (or spheres) Putin knows the best. In the second, state security is one of the few spheres retaining somewhat efficient career principle of rearing the personnel built on a definite and logical system of values.
Staff problem is the most pressing for all spheres of life in Russia, not only for state service. Businesses cry for competent managers.
Putin dislikes sharp gestures. He dislikes dismissals. Some observers ascribe it to his reluctance to alter the political course. They may be right. On the other hand, can we expect much less liking for sharp gestures from a man walking by feeling, without so much as navigational gear (strategy of development) or even IR-vision (perception of what we intend to build in Russia 10, 20, or 30 years from now)?
Consolidation around Putin and a new psychological atmosphere at and around the Kremlin succeeded without any structural revolutions in doing in two years what had not been done in years of awareness of its necessity. There is a reverse side to it here: the staff loyal to Putin personally does not believe in what is being done and what is to be done yet. Hence the impotent half-measures.
The tax reform is not working. Russia has the lowest income tax in Europe, 13%, but the absence of symmetric measures does not encourage capitals to start emerging from the shadows. The revenue tax was lowered but an effective mechanism of reinvestment was never established. Pensions legislation is adopted but nobody knows how the "long money" of the numerous pension funds will operate. Budget, Tax, Land, and Civil codes, and the Labor Code have been approved but also with restrictions, compromises, and discord...
In the near future, we are in for the adoption of the new law on bankruptcy, Arbitration Procedure Code, law on the land sale. Not all of these accomplishments have an immediate effect on the life of ordinary Russians.
The situation in foreign policy is the same. Who could imagine three years ago that the president of Russia, a man from secret services, would be meeting with the NATO general secretary to discuss closer contacts between Russia and the Alliance? That integration into the European Union and not into the Commonwealth would be proclaimed one of the priorities of the foreign policy? The actions of the Russian leadership on the foreign political arena indicate its intention to revise its imperial way of thinking and trying to make Russia a normal pragmatic state. Even here, however, the popular mood (in this, they mirror the moods prevailing in the majority of the Russian political elite) continues to fall behind, retaining all complexes and phobias of the Cold War.
We would like to talk of rapprochement with the European Union and NATO and about membership in the World Trade Organization but there is nobody to talk of it for us. Foreign policy is a presidential solo in other countries as well. But not to the extent it is in Putin's Russia!
Not so long ago one of these correspondents met with a prominent diplomat from the West who offered an interesting comparison. When a rock star is to appear on the scene, the audience first sees some minor singer or band, who warms them up for the main thing. The same goes for negotiations. Experts should thoroughly discuss their leaders' future accords. On Russia's side, the diplomat says, the warming up begins when Putin or Premier Mikhail Kasianov gets involved. Or at least some minister. Not before then.
There is some staff aura or retinue around the president already. It comprises of men whose job is to adore another man, the president. "This is what the president needs", "it will harm the president", "the president is of the opinion that this is what should be done" - this is what these men are fond of repeating.
Who surrounds the president - personalities - does not even matter. What matters is the ability of the inner circle to offer adequate solutions to existing problems. Its ability to tell the president when he is wrong or is about to make a mistake.
It is almost fashionable, politically, to fear the energetic Federal Security Service or the Prosecutor General's Office nowadays. Smart businesses and businessmen have already made friends with the appropriate structures, eagerly joining the assorted support foundations with all their hearts and wallets. Growth of foundations is a fashion as well. As for security and secret service structures joining the business sphere, this reached its current scale only under the present president.
As for the much-feared intensity in the actions of the prosecutors, a simple analysis shows that not a single figure of all serious scandals has ever been jailed. Shall we expect this to happen? It is unlikely. Many observers are very confident that secret services are not out to jail, they are out to scare only. To make businesses subtle and tame. What is there to be made subtle and tame? Businesses themselves and financial flows. Some spheres (like the Ministry of Railroads, Nuclear Energy Ministry, and the Rosenergoatom) have new leaders already. Others, like the State Customs Committee, are still under siege.
Experts who know chekist psychology say, "Men like that can only create obstacles", they cannot produce bold strategies in principle. They will never make a breakthrough in economy, particularly if the breakthrough implies a risk of social tension.
At the same time, Putin believes in the state, and 80% of the men around him are apparatchiks to the core. They have not become successful businessmen, made any discoveries, or proved themselves as prominent top managers. They are "grey", as one of the enemies of men from St. Petersburg put it. The man added quite reasonably that an inner circle like that can only result in a slide into stagnation (in the sense of reforms and new ideas) or into authoritarianism with a vague program of creative (not punitive) actions.
There is the widespread or at least the oft repeated opinion in the Kremlin that Putin himself is satisfied with "the broad assortment of opinions and views". It is clear already that he is building his own system of checks and balances. After two years in the Kremlin walls, Putin cannot help understanding what an unchecked fortification of one wing of a clan may result in.
According to some forecasts, the president is bound to encounter serious economic difficulties by September. More realistic analysts say that the economy will last this year all right and strike problems next spring. This is when Putin is going to be forced to give a serious thought to taxation, a radical reorganization of powers, revenues, and responsibility split among three lawyers of the state power structures (what is happening nowadays is but a prelude to the federative reforms restricted to the appearance of federal state officials on the level of federal regions), reorganization of natural monopolies, social welfare system, and foreign debts. But 2003 is the year of election of the Duma and the year before the presidential election. This is a year that should go smooth, without crises and cataclysms by definition. What is that? A dead-end?
Experts have been commenting on negative economic tendencies since last fall. Industrial growth rate has been falling along with domestic demand, one of the major sources of economic progress after 1998.
Putin has already castigated his subordinates for the high inflation. "We would like the government to pay special attention to what is happening in the economy, to macroeconomic parameters", he said in February. "There have not been any catastrophes or problems, but these things should be watched against".
The Russian White House assures that the government has successfully negotiated the problem of foreign debt payments in 2003 (one of the most pressing problems Russia is bound to face). Allegedly, Russia will have to pay $12 billion or even less instead of the $17 billion. The difference has already been shifted to domestic holders and they can wait.
There is however another problem here, a problem which already generated a quarrel between Kasianov and Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin. The matter concerns domestic loans. The Cabinet claims that reanimation of the short-term state bonds or their equivalent is only needed to keep in check the monetary mass. At the same time, banking reforms are not underway. They have merely been proclaimed and that is that. Participants of the market have been offered no actual instruments. Money continues to roam around the country. There are no mechanisms for shifting it from one sector to another. There is no effective mechanism of attracting foreign investments or runaway Russian capital amounting to billions and billions.
The other day, rumors began in the corridors of one respectable structure that large businesses were allegedly discussing presidential election'2004 with Kasianov. That some business tycoons allegedly wanted Kasianov to succeed Putin.
This "sensational" news is too fishy, since its authors' dislike of the premier is too apparent. As a matter of fact, there are only a handful of business tycoons who are actually capable of negotiations like that. Well, they are not involved in anything of the sort. One of them was even quoted as saying in private that "Kasianov will never go for it. He is not a suicidal type. Moreover, he keeps his promise..."
These and similar speculations on Kasianov's alleged political aspirations show quite the opposite. They show that the premier is sturdy enough to withstand the blow and to do what he can to protect the government from various "instructions" directly given to ministers by the men who consider themselves to be "close to the president", close enough "to act on his behalf".
There are numerous reports that Kasianov irks many of the strong and powerful. He has his own opinion on everything, he even dares to disagree with the president. He defends his ministers. Some rumors even indicate that a certain part of what calls itself a Putin's team, chekists from St. Petersburg in other words, would dearly like to see him toppled. According to the same rumors, this clan even have a substitute for Kasianov, a deputy premier.
Rumors often concern Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov every now and then. Some well-informed and usually trustworthy sources say that Ivanov's enemies recently succeeded in putting some distance between him and the president. Recent intensity in the actions of Director of the Presidential Administration Alexander Voloshin in the foreign political sphere (the Foreign Ministry board recently made him a certified diplomat at a closed meeting) is reputed to be a prelude to his promotion to the foreign minister or at least an ambassador to Canada. According to information compiled by Izvestia, Aleksei Gordeev may be ousted from his post of deputy premier in late spring. He will follow in Ilya Klebanov's steps in this case and merely retain his portfolio as a minister (according to sources in the Kremlin, it was Putin who left Klebanov his portfolio, Kasianov had made a mistake - he wanted Klebanov completely out but for some reason failed to suggest a substitute).
Putin and the country enter the second half of his presidential term in a state of stagnation.
This period is drawing to its end. Both Putin and the inner circle are aware of the necessity to move forward.
The country needs more than reforms to survive. It needs a breakthrough into the future. A breakthrough all over the front is impossible - too much has been lost. It is nevertheless possible yet to retain the spheres and sectors called priorities. These priorities have to be defined first. (Translated by A. Ignatkin)