Zits-president

(Photo: ERA )

The transition period is over: the second president of Russia began to fulfill his duties. On May 7 - the day of his inauguration - Vladimir Putin finally finally got rid of both the unpleasant prefix “acting” and the ambiguous epithet “chosen one”. Now he is a full-fledged president and can remove and appoint prime ministers, dissolve the State Duma, declare war and make peace. Maybe, but he doesn't want to.

During the six weeks following the elections, the new leader demonstrated his stature and prowess to his fellow citizens in every possible way. At some point, it even seemed that Vladimir Vladimirovich saw the main advantage of his new position in the opportunity to bring his most incredible childhood dreams to life. You can fly a fighter plane, stand at the helm of a torpedo boat, or become a simple sailor - kissing a sledgehammer and taking a sip of salty sea water.

Numerous voyages were supposed to take the form of inspection and familiarization trips for the new head of state, starting a four-year shift.

But these trips look like a continuation of the presidential candidate’s campaign campaign. Only towards the end of the election race, Putin’s political consultants convinced the patron to abandon the principle of “no advertising” and move on to active actions, memorable events (like a flight on a fighter plane from Sochi to Grozny). It seems that Vladimir Vladimirovich liked this business so much that even after March 26 he couldn’t stop. Moreover, after the elections there was no work for the president: his job was to sign decrees, but what to actually sign if advisers and consultants still did not finish the fundamental concept of the country’s development.

In the absence of it, Vladimir Putin continued to follow the advice of pre-election image makers. In his public speeches, he makes decisive but meaningless statements, diligently avoids sharp corners and, avoiding specificity in every possible way, says what the audience wants to hear from him.
“We must do what is useful for the country and for the people, and at the same time you can even waste your political resource while remaining honest to your voters,” Vladimir Vladimirovich announced at the next meeting on the problems of the agro-industrial complex in Belgorod. But the key problem - the issue of free purchase and sale of land - was never addressed. An extremely vague statement on the same topic was made by Putin a little earlier in Orel: “Freedom of operations with land must be carefully transferred to the localities... We must move towards private property carefully, carefully.”

The apotheosis of the protracted campaign was Vladimir Putin’s trip to Belgorod last Wednesday and a joint visit to Prokhorovsky Field with the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus. Integration and Slavic unions are a favorite topic of domestic PR specialists, who necessarily include relevant actions in their election campaign plans, despite the data of numerous sociological surveys, from which it follows that voters are not very concerned about the candidate’s position on this issue.

“Our peoples are united by common historical roots, destiny, culture and religion. We are one family,” Vladimir Putin said into the microphones in a broken voice. And at some point there was even a feeling that just a little more, and under the ringing of bells and Alexander Lukashenko’s monotonous reasoning about the collapse of the Union as “the greatest mistake of the outgoing century,” the presidents would publicly rush to correct the “mistake” of their predecessors. The populist action did not take place, one can only think because of the stubbornness of Leonid Kuchma, who carefully reduced the theme of unity to the Great Patriotic War: “The common task of the peoples of the three countries is to preserve the memory of the feat that the Soviet people accomplished in the war against fascism.”

But the problem is that the elections are long over and Vladimir Putin is no longer expected to take populist actions, but to take concrete actions in the economic and political spheres; finally, they are waiting for a list of members of his government. The President is silent. He only once - in London - stated more or less clearly that he wanted to see Mikhail Kasyanov as prime minister. But almost immediately upon his return he added that he was seriously considering other candidates - and the state of uncertainty returned again.

At the beginning of last week, Vladimir Vladimirovich left for Sochi. “Reflect on the structure and composition of the cabinet,” Kremlin officials insisted. However, it quickly became clear that Putin had gone to rest after all: to try, if the weather allowed, to get to the last ski slope that had not yet melted in an EMCHE helicopter, and then go out to sea on the yacht “Caucasus” to catch flounder.

Delayed hour "X"
The prolonged silence of Vladimir Putin is apparently explained by the fact that the head of state still has nothing to say to his voters. Nothing - because the presidential “scenario groups” neither in the Kremlin, nor in the White House, nor in Alexander House still cannot complete the creation of a grandiose treatise containing a program of action for the authorities for a year, two, three.

During the election campaign, I repeatedly heard stories about Putin’s commitment to right-wing liberal values ​​and how difficult it is for him to disguise his true beliefs so as not to irritate the average voter (SPS activists discussed these topics with particular enthusiasm). And, naturally, everyone was sure that Vladimir Vladimirovich was just waiting for the election day to pass and March 27 to come: then the “phase of decisive action” would begin, as one administration official put it.

But neither on March 27, nor on March 28, nor a month later did the newly appointed president demonstrate any decisive steps. He continued the election campaign, and his advisers successively postponed the start of economic reforms, first to the beginning of May, when the inauguration would take place, then to the beginning of June, when the formation of the government would be completed and the creation of an action program would be completed. According to the latest version, active action will begin no earlier than January next year, when a wave of gubernatorial elections will take place.

Meanwhile, “decisive actions” began in the circle of the head of state. Exactly on March 27, right-wing liberals led by Anatoly Chubais and the so-called “family” - the head of the administration, led by Alexander Voloshin, and friendly tycoon deputies Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich - came together in the struggle for the right to form and implement the program of the new president. And apparently, the latter are lucky.

Mikhail Kasyanov, whose candidacy was actively lobbied by Berezovsky and Voloshin, still has a high chance of leading the government. And German Gref, about whom Berezovsky has repeatedly spoken very disparagingly, runs the risk of not getting into the cabinet of ministers at all, although he was recently spoken of as a likely prime minister. Moreover, thanks to the efforts of the leadership of the Kremlin apparatus, Gref’s Center for Strategic Research, which was conceived as a “non-systemic” source of reform concepts and various kinds of transformation programs, has practically collapsed. Now, as in previous years, the program is written piece by piece at various state dachas by small groups of experts under the supervision of Voloshin’s advisers, and compiled into a traditional message to the Federal Assembly by presidential advisers in the Kremlin. The announcement is scheduled for early June. Implementation - as the political power of the presidential administration strengthens.

Political pillars of the Kremlin
Today the Kremlin believes that the president should not rush into decisive unpopular actions and should not prematurely provoke a conflict with deputies, governors and influential financial and political groups in the capital. The main task is to strengthen the Kremlin administration so that it completely controls all political processes in society. And then any plan of the head of state can easily be realized. And this will not provoke a global political crisis.

Anatoly Chubais set himself similar tasks when he headed the Kremlin apparatus in July 1996. But at that time, the presidential team was forced to look back at the left majority in the Duma, had weak positions in the gubernatorial corps and dubious reliability of support in the special services.

Now everything is different. The Kremlin completely controls the lower house, and presidential manipulators have already managed to clearly demonstrate how, through the formation of various coalitions, any decisions can be passed through parliament. In January, through the joint efforts of the pro-Kremlin Unity and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (including satellite groups), communist Gennady Seleznev was elected speaker, and three months later, the Kremlin, having formed a non-communist majority, achieved ratification of the START-2 treaty.

But the head of state’s entourage also wants to control the upper house. Recently, rumors have spread again about a revision of the principle of forming the Federation Council and about a return to the appointment of, if not all heads of the subjects of the Federation, then at least regional governors. However, according to available information, the concept of regional policy currently being developed on Staraya Square is much less ambitious. Its main idea is simple: any local leader should feel the attention of the federal center every second, clearly see the stick, and also feel from afar the subtle aroma of the carrot that he will receive for good behavior.

“It is necessary, without affecting the Constitution, to clarify the legal framework as much as possible in order to direct it towards strengthening the executive vertical and tightening the responsibility of governors,” a high-ranking official of the presidential administration explained to Itogi. “And there is no need for any refusal of electivity. We need a law where there would be a mechanism for removing the head of the administration for specific offenses has been prescribed. Similar rights of governors in relation to heads of local self-government should also be spelled out there. Then we will eliminate the long-standing conflict and have a chance to pass such a law through the Federation Council. But everything must be done quickly in order to be in time before the autumn election campaign "We must remember: those whom we elect in the fall will elect the president in 2004."

The Kremlin does not forget about the fourth estate. The Ministry of Press took on the task of taming the press at full speed, handing out weakly reasoned but formidable warnings left and right for violating the laws on the press and on the fight against terrorism. Accusing journalists of essentially aiding Chechen separatists and promoting their ideas, Mikhail Lesin’s department seeks to “suspend” as many printed publications as possible. The logic of the officials is simple: since two warnings can lead to a lawsuit and the closure of the publication, then after the first “black mark” journalists will inevitably become subdued.

And he doesn't mind
One gets the impression that Vladimir Putin, in principle, does not really understand what a president should do. Having made a rapid rise in personnel, jumping through several administrative levels in less than a year, he did not have time to acquire his own team of seasoned apparatchiks and practical business executives and is forced, willy-nilly, to rely on those who gave him the opportunity to occupy a high post (similar, in his own words , “and in a nightmare I couldn’t even dream of it”). He inevitably follows the rules that the bureaucratic apparatus around him adheres to.

The scheme of work, when Vladimir Vladimirovich actually plays the role of a puppet in the deft hands of Kremlin manipulators, took shape last summer. At first, the prime minister, and then the acting president, clearly and relentlessly followed the instructions of his advisers on where and when to appear and how best to present the next “improvisation,” which immediately turned into a catchphrase. Numerous staff officers during the election campaign, foaming at the mouth, convinced journalists that all this would end with the elections, that there would be no trace left of the “family” in the Kremlin, that after March 26, Vladimir Vladimirovich did not intend to tolerate the former Yeltsin entourage, but was finally going to act independently .

The main result of the transition period, which lasted from December 31, when Boris Yeltsin voluntarily resigned, until the inauguration of the head of state last Sunday, can be considered the fact that with the change of the owner of the Kremlin, there was no change in the mechanism for making political decisions. The practice that has developed in the Kremlin in recent years will continue under the new head of state. The same people as under Boris Yeltsin are sitting in the same places and, as before, “resolving issues” and “resolving situations.” The only difference is that previously, to obtain a final presidential visa, it was enough to drive along the Rublevskoye Highway either to the Central Clinical Hospital, or a little further - to Barvikha. Nowadays, the head of state has to be caught in the ice of the North Sea or at Sochi ski resorts.

In the winter, long before the elections, supporters of Vladimir Putin, who actively participated in the spread of various myths about their hero, swore that with Vladimir Vladimirovich coming to power, the period of behind-the-scenes wars and endless behind-the-scenes intrigues for the right to access the highest ear would end. “All this home-grown Byzantineism of ours is alien to Putin. Don’t forget, he is a straightforward campaigner, not a politician,” one of the then-acting advisers assured the Itogi correspondent. president. And at some point it really began to seem that the management style in the Kremlin was changing, there were fewer reckless improvisations. But this illusion was soon dispelled.

Quite quickly, an answer was found to another question that tormented observers: what levers does the “family” have to manipulate Putin? It turned out that there are no special levers, because they are not really required. Neither oral or written commitments nor suitcases of incriminating evidence were needed. Vladimir Putin himself readily ceded the right to decide big politics to the old Kremlin guard.

Once, when the State Duma was once again considering the issue of the chairman of the Central Bank, journalists turned to Viktor Gerashchenko, then retired, with a question: what did the respected banker think about the candidacy of Boris Fedorov. And they received the answer: “You can appoint anyone. Even you. You just need to give him a dozen blacks or knights of the round table to help him, so that they can work day and night, and he can reason.”

Apparently, the Kremlin implemented just such a scheme for governing the state. Only the president’s entourage certainly does not consider themselves black laborers. And fortunately he doesn’t particularly object, he considers his patron to be something like a presidential president who agrees to be content for the most part with the external trappings of power and thereby the right to reason.