Who Is the Real Leader of Russia?

Ever since Dmitri Medvedev's nomination to succeed Vladimir Putin as president of Russia, followed by his election and now his inauguration, Kremlin watchers, both Russian and Western, have been discussing the so-called "Putin-Medvedev tandem" and asking who will really lead Russia. Is the duumvirate stable? Will it degenerate into squabbling among the Kremlin clans behind the scenes?

The pundits have identified four plausible scenarios. One is that President Medvedev will indeed have the principal power, including the possibility of ousting Putin as prime minister, or marginalizing him, since the Russian political system has been "super-presidential," i.e., strongly centered in the presidency, since the adoption of the new constitution by Boris Yeltsin in 1993. The second is that the system will remain centered around Prime Minister Putin through informal power mechanisms that have much more weight in this system than do the formal powers granted by the constitution; this is the scenario I consider most likely. A third is that the United Russia Party will emerge as dominant in this situation, able to make or break presidents through the electoral process. A fourth is that the whole country, or at least the government, will fall apart because of feuding among the followers of the president and the prime minister who will be unable to decide on the fair division of spoils that come with holding power in this country that covers one-sixth of the Earth's land mass.

Because the corridors of power are so completely impenetrable to outsiders, no one knows what will happen. Still, Putin and his advisers' actions in the months leading up to the election and then inauguration of Medvedev as president of the Russian Federation suggest some answers.

Putin's Trajectory

In many ways, Putin has been the most transparent of Russian leaders. Immediately upon his ascension to formal power as president in spring 2000, he spoke of a "power vertical," which he then proceeded unapologetically to construct. He proposed two years ago that he might become prime minister. On Oct. 2, 2007, at the Congress of United Russia, Putin called the notion that he might head the government "completely realistic."

There have, however, been ambiguities and contradictions throughout his two terms as president, including, most recently, with the issue of succession. Beginning in the fall of 2007, Kremlin officials and United Russia leaders began consistently calling on Putin to remain a "national leader" in order to ensure the continuity of current policies. Yet at the same time there was no official clarification as to what exactly this might entail.

Recently there also has been a profound marshaling of historical symbolism that seems to increase with every turn of the story. While systematically downplaying what they are doing, Putin and his handlers have gone to surprising lengths to marshal symbolism straight from the pages of Russian history.

Specifically, I argue that the solution in which Medvedev would be elected president in 2008 and he would then in turn name Putin as his prime minister was evolving steadily behind the scenes in ways that were not always transparent to outside observers and that support the hypothesis that Medvedev is likely to be more of a figurehead than a real president.

Because Putin famously loves surprises, he (and his handlers) did not let the public know who was going to be named heir apparent to the presidency until Dec. 10, 2007. An element of surprise and anxious waiting had become by now in the Putin presidency an element de rigueur, keeping politicians and the public guessing. Who would succeed Putin, everyone was asking. Many were convinced that Putin would truly step down because he stated so often that he would do so.