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Opinion
June 16, 2017 www.intellinews.com I Page 22
If it is one of the younger, rising generation of poli- ticians such as Minister for Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin or Energy Minister Alexander Novak, then the temptation would be to consider this only as a trial run. Putin, after all, will need a successor who is able to cope with a range of chal- lenges, but who also appears “sound” on protect- ing both his legacy and also his personal future.
But if it is one of the existing heavyweights, such as First Deputy PM Igor Shuvalov, Deputy PM Arkady Dvorkovich, Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, or maybe even Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin (is his current reconstruction campaign part of a deeper po- litical strategy?), then the rumour mill will start grind- ing as never before. Even if Putin considers them no more than of prime ministerial calibre, he will be giving the impression that they could be presidential, and also granting them a formidable power base.
Underlying all these assumptions – and that is all they are – is a belief that Putin is running out of steam, that he has no new ideas and a diminishing enthusiasm for the job. Rightly or wrongly, many blandly assert that if he felt he had a viable and re- liable successor ready, he would not even be stand- ing in 2018. Others wonder whether he actually
did himself a disservice extending the presidential term to six years: will he want or be able to last out to 2024 (by which time he will be 71)?
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Nobody knows, or at least no one outside Putin’s closed and uncommunicative inner circle. But there is an extent to which such speculation becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Much of Putin’s authority and legitimacy, those 80%-plus approval ratings, comes not so much from anything he does, so much as what he is. Putin managed to make himself the avatar of Russia, a sacral figure rather than another squalid little politician scrabbling for votes.
This is the modern equivalent of divine right. Just as with the monarchs of the old order, once peo- ple begin to lose awe and faith, once they begin to treat the tsar’s position as something that another could fill, then the power can quickly wane.
We are nowhere near that point yet. Assuming Pu- tin stands in 2018, there is no question that he will win, even without the massive use of so-called “ad- ministrative resources” to manufacture a triumph. But the very fact that people, even while accepting that, are already looking beyond then, to a post-Pu- tin Russia, and beginning to have serious and open conversations about who should lead it and in what directions, suggests tectonic plates are moving.
Quite what this will mean neither we nor the brooding master of the Kremlin really know.
Mark Galeotti is a senior researcher at UMV, the Institute of International Relations Prague, a visit- ing fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the director of Mayak Intelligence. He blogs at In Moscow’s Shadows and tweets as @ MarkGaleotti.
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