Page 28 - BNE_magazine_02_2020

28 I Cover story bne February 2020
placeholder presidency of 2008-2012, however half-hearted, is testament to that,” Arutunyan said.
And the rise of the liberal fraction is
also a testimony to that. They are now fully in charge of economic policy and implementation, to the point where
the Ministry of Finance successfully forced Gazprom and Rosneft – the two most power state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Russia – to increase their dividend payments to 50%, despite determined opposition by the incumbent management.
The appointment of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has only increased the power of the liberal faction as Mishustin belongs to this crowd: apolitical, modest, a driven technocrat, a highly efficient administrator, financially savvy
and, above all else, honest, according those that have worked with him.
Mishustin is a manger, who has been put in charge with a job to do: make
the national projects work. He stands
in total contrast to Medvedev, who was a Putin puppet there to give Putin direct control of the Duma by proxy.
The bottom line is Putin wants it both ways: he wants to dilute the power of the presidency so the whole succession issue of 2024 is less of an issue; and he wants to stay in charge, not because he wants to stay in charge, but he doesn't believe the system is ready to run on its own without someone overseeing it.
And he is probably right about the latter point. And he is also to blame for the system’s inability to function on its
own as he is responsible for keeping the institutions weak, for concentrating so much power in his own hands and for running the country on the basis
of the bureaucrat-client relations where corruption is the system, as bne IntelliNews has previously argued.
The new system Putin is proposing is not a democratic one, but it is a step away from the authoritarian rule where the president is in full control of all
the real power. It is an extension of
the “managed sovereignty” that has been a theme of his tenure, but it also creates a mechanism for a smoother move towards a democratic Russia by increasingly freeing new parties in the Duma to have real debates and become increasingly accountable to the public.
Ben Aris in Berlin
The finale of a dramatic news day for Russia was the appointment of the head of the Russian tax office Mikhail Mishustin as prime minister to replace the outgoing Dmitry Medvedev, who had resigned along with the whole government only a
few hours earlier on January 15.
The other big news from the comprehensive shake-up of the government was the announcement by Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov that he was standing down “for health reasons”, although other reports said he may be promoted and given a role in the new federal government. Kadyrov is one of the most notorious figures in Russian politics and has been accused of multiple murders and running death squads in the Caucasian republic that was blighted by two separatist wars until he took over.
Mishustin’s appointment continued the theme of breaking with the way government has been run over the
last two decades and is yet another signal that Russian President
Vladimir Putin wants to be seen to be making a fresh start.
Head of Russian tax service Mikhail Mishustin appointed prime minister.
Head of Russian tax service Mikhail Mishustin appointed prime minister