Translated material
don't fuss"
Vladimir Putin: Everyone who needs it is already working at their posts
Vladimir Putin does not want to launch an open presidential election campaign. Yesterday, during the traditional “big” press conference , he avoided answering all questions about potential presidential candidates and his future . And he even complained that journalists “shut him up” with questions about this. “I am also a citizen of the Russian Federation, which I am very proud of, and, of course, I reserve the right to express some preferences. But I will do this only during the election campaign,” this is the maximum that journalists managed to get from the president. Putin did not mention the names of Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov, who are considered the main candidates for “successors,” yesterday.Meanwhile, not only journalists, but also business, bureaucrats, foreign policy partners, and ordinary people are waiting for signals from Putin. “The presidential elections will be held in two rounds: Putin will vote in the first, and everyone else will vote in the second,” this joke from one of the Kremlin political strategists is becoming less of a joke every day. If Putin “votes” only at the start of the election campaign, then voters will have only the three months required by law.
It seems that Vladimir Putin is trying to instill in society the idea that it does not matter who exactly takes his post. “We need you and I not to fuss about future elections, but to provide citizens with the opportunity to make an objective choice, to provide citizens with this free democratic choice,” he says. And yet, this choice is complicated at least by the desire to achieve a high degree of consolidation in the name of maintaining high rates of development: “We need that with all the difference in political forces - and there are many of them now on the political scene of the country - so that they can rise above their own political ambitions and focus on working together.” When asked whether we will see a potential president in a high government position, Putin replies: “Everyone who needs it is already working in their posts.”
Vladimir Putin considers one of the achievements of recent years to be that he (the president says “we”) managed to strengthen the political system. The framework of the political system is political parties. The most recent task for the voter is to find differences in the ideology of “United Russia” and “Fair Russia”. The task is complicated by the fact that many do not see any signs of ideology in these parties at all. Here, apparently, we will have to take the president’s word for it: he feels these signs and differences and promises that someday others will feel them too. The President gives a “tip”: “United Russia” is still a more right-wing and liberal center, at least from the point of view of economic policy, although there are many very social democratic tendencies there, and I felt this very well in working on various bills. But “A Just Russia” is, of course, a party that in all its manifestations resembles such a socialist, social-democratic direction.” And he adds: “This may not yet be fully felt or visible, just as the right-wing liberal direction of activity in United Russia is not fully visible.” It takes time." The struggle between two such different elements of the political system, the president hopes, will be sharp (“the sharper the better”), but “without resorting to various compromising evidence, insults, and so on.”
Apparently, both campaigns - both parliamentary and presidential - will take place in an atmosphere of unity and the struggle of man-made opposites. But if both “Russies” can get into the Duma, then in March next year there can only be one winner. And, apparently, Dmitry Medvedev and Sergei Ivanov will not know until the very end how Putin himself will “vote.” Now Medvedev looks more promising. But it is too obvious that both “candidates,” while fulfilling their official duties quite conscientiously, are working precisely for their own rating with Putin, and not with the population. These are the rules of the game: the president votes in the “first round”. After all, for example, it would be, to put it mildly, surprising if one of them (especially both) announced now that he intends to fight for the main post in the country. “We have no ambitions,” says an official working next to one of the “successors,” either jokingly or seriously.
In the United States, where presidential elections will take place eight months later than in Russia, more than a hundred people have already declared their desire to participate in the presidential race, a number of whom look like real contenders. The rating of some of them exceeds that of the current head of state, George Bush. In Russia, only a few people have so far announced presidential ambitions, including ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and Arkhangelsk Mayor Alexander Donskoy. As is known, Mr. Kasyanov is under close scrutiny from investigative authorities regarding real estate transactions. And the mayor of Arkhangelsk, whom the prosecutor’s office suspected of falsifying a school certificate and other offenses, yesterday received a “order” from President Putin. He believes that the matter is not at all about Donskoy’s self-nomination, but about the fact that the mayor quarreled with the governor. Be that as it may, last night the mayor told the press that another criminal case had been opened against him.
The persistent public interest in the personality of the successor has a huge advantage, which truly reflects changes in the political system - society is moving away from the idea of a “third term.” Maybe this is enough for now, and Putin is right - there is no need to “fuss”?