Biden’s Visit a Signal to the Elites

On March 9, President Dmitry Medvedev will meet with the vice president of the U.S., Joseph Biden. The visit by a high-ranking American representative brings with it a working character. However, a few Russian experts interpret it as an unambiguous signal to the Russian elite about Washington’s support of Medvedev’s candidacy in the presidential election. There are discussions among newspaper correspondents about just how prepared they are to work in tandem for this nomination.

A source for Nezavisimaya Gazeta in the State Duma claims that Biden’s visit demonstrates support from the West for a potential nomination of Dmitry Medvedev’s candidacy for a second term. According to the source, Washington had allegedly come to this decision already in 2007, when Vladimir Putin was insisting on a different successor — Sergei Ivanov.

A correspondent for Nezavisimaya Gazeta believes that the coming arrival by the American is connected to discussions about another important problem: Putin’s position after the election. According to the source, the head of the government, if he does not run for re-election, may be offered a seat on the International Olympic Committee.

For a part of the Russian elite, who have a stake in the current prime minister, noted the source, Americans will cope easily: “It would be sufficient to reject overseas visas for Yuri Kovalchuk, Arcadia Rothenberg or Gennady Timochenko. And if that does not help, freeze their activities in foreign banks.”* In the opinion of the correspondent to NG, referring to discussions with American legislators, Medvedev is wavering now, and Putin “may apply pressure through informal channels”* on the head of state. Therefore, Biden’s arrival, the source points out, is moral support for the Russian president.

A member of the Science Council of the Carnegie Moscow Center, Nikolai Petrov, hesitates to connect predestination to future presidential elections. The expert has examined the appearance of certain ways of handling of public opinion by representatives of those circles of the elite who are interested in Medvedev for president in 2012: “The announcement by Gleb Pavolvsky that this has already been decided in the Kremlin, it seems to me, is connected exclusively to his personal position and with his lack of real prospects to preserve his current position in the event that Medvedev departs. The fact is that Pavlovsky no longer sits on Yakimanka and is already no longer an important and influential person even according to external measures as he was before, and it indicates that the position of Medvedev’s people in the Kremlin is now significantly weaker.”*

The correspondent to NG does not believe that Biden “is the kind of person with whom Moscow would enter confidential discussions.”* “If Medvedev has some kind of personal connection with Americans, then of course it is a personal connection to Barack Obama and not with the vice president. A publicity campaign carries with it the goal of translating, as if it had already been decided, where Medvedev remains.”*

Petrov suggests paying attention to the “real signals” to the public. For example, the issue of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev: “Medvedev has said something good. And what could follow this? Previously in the Khimki forest Medvedev tried to demonstrate something liberal, but the final decision of such an acute issue is not connected in any way with presidential power.”* There are also the reforms of the police, “which to Medvedev obviously have no relation and, in general, to other reforms as well.”

The tandem would not be preserved after the elections, Petrov believes: “In Russia there are serious conflicts between structures and agencies, which shows that there exists some ambiguity and some struggle.”* In this case such a form of government would be beneficial to the political business elite, providing that it is possible to maneuver between the formal leader and the real leader in these conditions. “But maneuvers and working in tandem is one issue, and there is another matter: Medvedev as a leader. Principally, this is a different configuration. And once Putin is decided as the president, then the main role of Medvedev could be decided only by Putin or the political elite. Medvedev by himself would never be able to rise to this position.”*

The head of the Center for Elite Studies in the Institute of Sociology in the Russian Academy of Sciences, Olga Kryshtanovskaya, who has experience working in the American Congress, is certain that “in principle, the U.S. cannot dictate anything to us; they have no leverage for that whatsoever. The other issue is that the reality may be the following: If our elites decide that the presidency will go to Medvedev, then there remains a question about the place of Vladimir Putin in international organizations. For example, that the premier could be the next head of the U.N.”*

Kryshtanovskaya suggests considering the situation in which there are “two people — ambitious, successful, who have been presidents of large countries.”* “It is entirely possible that both of them would want to take this post. At stake here would be either an internal conflict or fragmentation of the elites — that is, some kind of small conflict. Both of them would not want this conflict and would search for an alternative in order to avoid breaking up the elite. I think that they are responsible people and a compromise would be found.”*

In the opinion of the expert, a compromise will depend on “one of them agreeing to depart without conflicts and battles, occupying some other important post.”* “If Putin remains the prime minister that would mean one thing: He will once again return to a situation of the technical premier, but the president will become an uncontested president, as Putin was in his time. Medvedev would then be strengthened, and Putin’s power would decrease. But for him, this would be an uncomfortable situation. Therefore leadership of an international organization would be a good exit for him.”*

*Editor’s Note: These quotes, though accurately translated, could not be verified.