Translated material
How does this work
It is too early to talk about how the newly minted government and presidential administration will interact, and to argue that some odious influential figures of the Putin era have been pushed to the margins of power. To begin with, it is fundamentally important to eliminate the deep flaw of the existing system of power - the deliberate discrepancy between the institutions of the state and the positions of officials and their real participation in governing the country, as well as the use of government functions as an instrument of personal business.
For example, Nikolai Patrushev was moved from the post of director of the FSB to the post of secretary of the Security Council. Can this be considered a demotion or even a political retirement? Formally, yes. The Security Council at this particular moment is a completely incomprehensible body without influence, powers and clear participation in the process of making government decisions. Whereas the capabilities of the FSB in Russia allow their owners to very effectively defend their group interests. But there are no insurmountable obstacles to turning the Security Council into a real instrument of influence. Even if this body is absent from the Constitution and is subordinate to the president personally, President Medvedev may want to leave the Security Council as a completely decorative structure. Power in Russia rests not on positions, but on a combination of personal connections. Patrushev, who was formally demoted, and Igor Sechin, who was not formally demoted (the transition from deputy head of the presidential administration to deputy prime minister is not a demotion), will be able to maintain the same degree of influence on Prime Minister Putin; Prime Minister Putin will want to use representatives of this near-Kremlin group to strengthen his positions under President Medvedev, and the positions of the incumbents will have no meaning.
Russia faces a long return to the power of institutions instead of the power of characters. Influential officials of the Kremlin administration, in principle, should not have the slightest opportunity to order criminal cases against the management of companies with the aim of taking away business. Law enforcement agencies, in principle, should not be an instrument of raiding, as they have become in recent years. All authorities and the officials representing them must deal with exactly those problems that are within their competence, professionally and in strict accordance with the law. This is banal, but for modern Russia, where the parliament is not a parliament, the government has long ceased to be a government, the presidential administration, instead of the technical office, has been the real arbiter of the country’s destinies for many years, it seems almost a miracle.
A departure from the current principles of the structure of power in Russia is necessary not even because a new president has come and he needs to rule the country in conditions when, by and large, the old one and his entire team have not gone anywhere. It is necessary because the country needs to finally begin to solve substantive problems. Not the division of other people's profitable businesses, but the fight against inflation, not self-PR and the triumph of an almost one-party system, where even the party in power is not a party, but overcoming the still very significant poverty - these are the real tasks of the authorities. In order to solve substantive problems, we also need meaningful power, where the efforts of officials are not spent on behind-the-scenes fights, the acquisition of assets under the smokescreen of the civil service and the demonstration of apparatus weight in a crocodile battle with the same competitors from the authorities.
Natural monopolies and the largest state corporations became a state within a state because specific departments and even individual government officials were a state within a state. Within the apparently monolithic vertical of power, specific principalities of power were formed, which were in a state of constant internecine wars.
How this very vertical of dual power will work depends a lot on the personal political will of the new president and prime minister. The gap for wiring in the new power structure is certainly no less than in the old one: then, at least, there was one leader of the country, and now there are two for some time. I don't want to get divorced. But there are not many real opportunities for shadow governance of the country. You cannot cover up rising inflation with political technology PR. Each of the two key figures of today's duumvirate did not have any real support among the people - the obedient majority will easily swear and re-swear allegiance to any ruler. The population, which has been consistently excluded from creative processes for the past eight years, will not return to active interaction with the authorities until the authorities prove their interest in such interaction.
Therefore, any most reasonable concepts for the country’s development until 2015, 2020 or 2030 will remain utopias until the Russian authorities begin to work constructively and strictly within their competence. And this is immeasurably more important for the fate of the country and for the effectiveness of government than how “Medvedev’s people” get along with “Putin’s people.”