Translated material
Casting of kings
Quantitatively, Dmitry Medvedev seems to be winning the information duel between the two kings. According to the Medialogia company and the SCAN-Interfax database, from May 12 (the day when Vladimir Putin actually assumed the duties of prime minister) to June 15, the president spoke on five federal television channels one and a half times more often than the head of government: 548 and 328 times respectively. In total, on radio and TV, according to SCAN-Interfax, Medvedev was mentioned 1,568 times and Putin 1,125 times. But qualitatively Vladimir Putin is still ahead. Medvedev's trust rating, according to VTsIOM, is 40%, according to the FOM - 45%. But Putin's trust rating still fluctuates in the range of 60-70%.
It seems that the head of government is well aware of the role of television in the struggle to maintain the real levers of governing the country. At a meeting with the Duma faction of the “bears” in the Lesnye Dali boarding house near Moscow, Vladimir Vladimirovich expressed a desire to conduct permanent “direct lines” with the population. “My reception office receives many requests, and my representatives work with them, but, naturally, I would be interested in communicating directly with citizens,” Mr. Putin said. If the “direct lines” of the head of government with answers to the population’s questions actually become permanent and are broadcast on federal television channels, President Dmitry Medvedev’s chances of leading in the media space will sharply decrease.
Until now, in Russia, television “direct lines” with the people were organized only by the president, and this president was Putin himself. This format of communication with the population of prime ministers simply did not exist. As an exception, we can only recall the “live” negotiations between Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and Shamil Basayev (Chernomyrdin’s famous “Shamil Basayev, speak louder”), when Basayev’s thugs took hostages in a hospital in the Stavropol city of Budennovsk. But this was in a different political era, and Viktor Stepanovich never claimed the presidential powers of Boris Yeltsin. At that time, there was a real multi-party system in the country, a strong opposition, and federal television was not yet geared to serving the interests of the top officials of the state.
Now, in conditions where federal television is the service sector of the power elite, whoever rules television largely rules the country. While the president will appear in the frames of official television news, the audience of which is steadily decreasing, the prime minister intends to communicate directly with the people, answering questions from ordinary people.
The role of the all-Russian supply manager, who personally delves into the concerns of specific citizens on live television, is much more advantageous than the usual chronicle of presidential work - visits, work meetings, duty meetings with collective farmers, school graduates, etc. Again, it is not yet known whether Dmitry Medvedev himself will agree to conduct annual “straight lines” in the image and likeness of his predecessor. And if both leaders of the country begin to conduct online dialogues, we may be in for an exciting interactive show even cooler than “House-2.” A real casting for kings.
True, if the prime minister decides to make “direct lines” permanent, the president will have to become someone like Hugo Chavez with his incendiary weekly television programs to interrupt their effect. It is unlikely that Dmitry Medvedev will be able to withstand competition with Vladimir Putin here. Turns of phrases like “wet in the toilet” and “they will get ears from a dead donkey” are still not stylistically typical of the current president.
In the modern history of Russia, there have already been cases when the prime minister turned out to be significantly more popular than the president: this was the case with Viktor Chernomyrdin and Yevgeny Primakov in the era of Boris Yeltsin. But then no one doubted for a minute Boris Nikolaevich’s ability to instantly fire each of these prime ministers. Now there are serious doubts that the president will decide to fire the prime minister, although one way or another the conflict with two rulers of the country in a political system intended for only one will have to be resolved.
The apparatus struggle and PR - these two main components of Russian power - will become a set of tools with the help of which competition for leadership can be conducted. Judging by the fact that Vladimir Putin some time ago already invented the previously non-existent “prime minister’s telegrams”, equating them in status to presidential ones, and now also intends to constantly communicate with the people, the head of government is clearly ready to use PR opportunities to the fullest extent . The question is whether the president will want to compete in this field or will prefer to take advantage of the breadth of his constitutional powers at the level of apparatus policy.