Martyrology of the Successors

Vladimir Putin's positions on a post of the leader of the state still are strong and remain such till 2018 and even after but in case of some tragic accident with the president representatives of various groups of elite already prepare own successors. Such situation was stated by authors of the next part of the report "Politburo 2.0" published by the fund “Minchenko Consulting”.

Though the Russian power groups around Putin are in rather stable condition, they already start preparing own representatives to the place of the Russian Prime Minister and, as a result, the successor of the incumbent president.

"Race of successors" which was stated by authors of the report started now only between the head of the government Dmitry Medvedev and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. This race is within framework of habitual, according to the authors of the report, Putin's strategy under the name "infinite testing of successors" which is directed on constraining of elite by means of competition among themselves, not with the president.

Due to Medvedev's uncertain position inside "Politburos 2.0" "overflow points" of political resources lost by him were outlined. The first group — group of Mayor of Moscow Sergey Sobyanin who has successful experience of the manager and the largest after federal officialdom. Those representatives of elite who aren't interested in the growth of influence of Sobyanin are compelled to be guided by his competitor in the capital — businessman Mikhail Prokhorov who declared his ambitions to participate in elections of the Mayor of Moscow.

The second group — group of the former Minister of Finance Alexey Kudrin who still have, according to authors of the report, serious trump in the form of factor which can be called "folding bed in the kitchen" on which, according to a legend, the present president used to sleep when Kudrin in 1996 invited him to Moscow after defeat of Anatoly Sobchak’s defeat at elections of the mayor of Petersburg.

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From editorial board: Frankly speaking, "national" discussion of the stupid and tendentious report makes impression of deja vu of Yeltsin’s era. Putin now is just approximately of the same age as Yeltsin of that time.

Mikhail Delyagin has already poured cold water on the heads of analysts: "Race of successors constantly takes place. Thus today is not 2018 and considerable part of elite perfectly well understands that serious deeps shocks will happen till that time. I can’t imagine that someone seriously tries to become Putin’s substitution or to become "the second number" at him, to fight for a post of the successor. There is a race for power, it always takes place, but it became aggravated during last two years because the liberal clan tries to knock Putin down as he is. It very strongly polarized political structure of our ruling party and strengthened the need for leaders of the second plan. Besides, Shoygu became more active. If he copes with the Ministry of Defence, he will be excellent successor, absolutely comfortable for Putin, all understand it".

This comment is for the clever. While we have a society of "lotus eaters" – to such an extent that they immediately forget not only their past but even what happened not so long ago.

They started talking about Yeltsin's successors in 1993, there was a list which started from vice-president Rutskoj to Assistant to the President Stankievich. For the lack of the Internet, they published ratings in newspapers. All remember how it ended on the example of Rutskoj, but all other persons figures involved in that "presidential casting" irrespective of the position they occupied in October, 1993 left public policy, at that it was done amicably.

Elections of 1996 weren't "presidential casting" in the sense of this word, rather on the contrary, however such candidates as Lebed, Yavlinsky, Fedorov, Gorbachev, Vlasov fought for the post seriously (it can't be said about Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, Shakkum, Bryntsalov and Tuleyev). As a result Lebed and Fedorov later crashed, the rest left policy. While the "spoilers" feel themselves unanimously well.

During the last period of Yeltsin’s board there was a casting for the post of the prime minister. Sergey Kiriyenko who was appointed "to sacrifice" of August, 1998 was an exception, the role of the successor was carried out by Nemtsov as the first Deputy Prime Minister. As we see, when the casting was won by Putin, other applicants disappeared from the official politicum: Primakov, most real of the candidates, retired, Nemtsov was thrown out from nomenclature magazine, Stepashin headed unclear and non-political body.

There also were successors at early Putin, first of all M. Kasyanov - his political figure was so persistently erased from a board that an empty place appeared at last. On elections of 2004 even spoilers were so afraid to seem real candidates (with all that it implies) that Kharitonov was put forward instead of Zyuganov and Malyshkin instead of Zhirinovsky. At that I remember very well how campaign headquarters of the CPRF painfully looked for the candidate to replace Zyuganov – Zyuganov personally searched for it.

By the way, the third place of that presidential elections was very costly to S. Glazyev - at the end of 2004 he was displaced from the post of the head of fraction “Rodina” acting, by the way, with support to Putin on elections. Glazyev never got to the Duma after it, on elections of 2012 he was authorized representative of Putin, then received a post of the adviser of the president – the one against whom he fought in 2004. It is necessary to understand that Glazyev's independent political career thus came to the end.

Let’s look at the casting of presidential successors of 2013 in the light of such historical retrospective 5 years prior to planned elections: Medvedev, Rogozin, Shoygu, Sobyanin...

Аnatoly Baranov

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