"Medvedev's zeroing"

When to wait for a change of government

The last week brought a new wave of rumors about the inevitable resignation of the government Dmitry Medvedev. Believe or not to believe, and when to really wait for the change of office, the New Times sorted out

Putin doubts that Medvedev will soon be needed, few doubts (in the photo - the remnants of the United Russia propaganda plate in the 2011 State Duma elections)

“The government’s resignation will necessarily take place, the only question is when,” Dmitry Medvedev’s commentary on rumors about the resignation of his own office in an interview with NTV was quite ambiguous. The interview was aired on Sunday evening, May 26. A few more days passed - and many observers came to a completely unambiguous conclusion: this “when” can come much earlier than the prime minister himself thinks.

Losses

In the same interview, NTV said the prime minister: he asked his comrades (ministers and their deputies) to “not twitch” and continue to work. But literally a couple of days passed-and Medvedev lost two noticeable members of his team at once: on the afternoon of the 28th, the deputy minister of education Igor Fedyukin resigned, who answered the Ministry, among other things, for the fight against linden dissertations. And in the evening of the same day, it became known about leaving all the posts and leaving abroad of one of the leading Russian economists, a member of the Medvedev open government Sergey Guriev.

With all the obvious differences between these people, the hand of the “party of guardians” is visible in the incident with both of them. Unless for Guriev the movement of this “hand” became decisive*, while Fedyukin only “pushed” slightly. After all, on the morning of May 28, he resolutely denied media reports about his resignation. But here the Prosecutor General’s Office suddenly disseminated information about violations identified in the Ministry of Education, and the deputy minister announced his own care. Although, as the New Times explained to the ministry, the prosecutor’s audit passed three months ago and Fedyukin was personally nominated by any complaints.

Many commentators immediately put these episodes on a par with the departure of May 8 “at their own free will” Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov. But if, then, explaining to The New Times, the reasons for the resignation of the Creator of the “sovereign democracy”, political scientists put forward various versions, including personal nature **, then after the forced emigration of Guriev they almost unanimously started talking about the “attack on the environment of Medvedev” ***. Moreover, the echoes of this attack can also be heard in the end of last week about the information about personnel rearrangements caused by the upcoming departure from the Kremlin Assistant President Elvira Nabiullina (on June 24, she will take office as the head of the Central Bank. - The New Times). Indeed, in the government, according to the sources of The New Times, in its place they wanted to see the deputy chairman of the Central Bank Alexei Ulyukaev, who, as a result, is expected, will become the Minister of Economic Development, but the current head of the Ministry of Economic Development Andrei Belousov will move to the Kremlin.

Speaking about pressure on Medvedev and Medvedevsky, one cannot help but recall other recent episodes that successfully complement the picture-whether it is a criminal case against the Vice President of Skolkovo, Alexei Beltyukov on a waste or on May 20, a humiliating incident with Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is Putin’s security, according to the media reporting, at first. I learned ”and refused to let the Bochars stream into the Sochi residence.

It is clear that the readiness to “do not twitch and continue to work”, as Medvedev bequeathed, all these excesses do not add to the government members. Yes, and the prime minister himself seems to understand this: it is no coincidence that on May 28 he defiantly appeared at a conference in Skolkovo in the company of retired Surkov. Many commentators regarded this as a sensation (although a formally former Deputy Prime Minister is still a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fund) and Medvedev’s attempt to somehow reassure his subordinates-they say, the prime minister, like the president, “does not pass his own.”

Forecasts

Decriminalization of slander was one of Medvedev’s first initiatives, canceled after his departure from the post of president (in the photo - a picket at the State Duma building in July 2012

Experts surveyed by The New Times are also saying that members of the government also feel very uncertain. Moreover, this uncertainty, in their opinion, directly affects the work of the office as a whole and ultimately brings its resignation.

“In comparison with the 90s, there is a feeling that then the people in the government were stronger,” says Nikita Maslennikov, head of the financial and economic projects of the Institute of Modern Development, who worked in 1993-1998 as assistant prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin. -Now almost so, some winds blew, criticism sounded-and the situation of unknown and instability begins. And if there is uncertainty in their own decisions - how can one talk about their quality? "

From here, according to the expert, and attempts to revise the previous decision to introduce the “budget rule”, and “crazy ideas for weakening monetary policy”, and the failure of the terms of pension reform. “It turns out that the government has several economic politicians: on Monday-Tuesday, one, and on the night of Thursday to Friday-the other,” adds Maslennikov. “I think in the next year we will see the same picture - until a critical mass will accumulate and a point of no return will not be passed.”

Former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, however, is sure that the change of government will happen much earlier, not only for economic, but also for purely political reasons: “The first year of Putin was dedicated to the tightening of the nuts, and the authorities sees that half of society in Russia is still configured (in relation to it) negatively, and Putin’s foreign public criticizes more. The economic situation will also not improve, since the model, which worked only with a constant increase in oil prices, has exhausted itself. Therefore, now Putin needs to lead bridges to the west and do something that would seem to be the beginning of liberalization. ”

According to the ex-Prime Minister, the replacement of the current government, which “does not carry any political burden”, to a new one, capable of the eyes of voters and foreign partners, “decide something and bear responsibility for it”.

The new prime minister, according to Kasyanov’s forecast, will be the former Minister of Finance Alexei Kudrin, and this will happen “not when it is already fried, but a little earlier” in September. Accordingly, Mikhail Kasyanov considers the collisions to the government as a whole and his individual representatives to the preparation of public opinion-"so that it does not look like that the government replaced the government from the bay-bary, but the claims have really accumulated."

True, some analysts suggest that to sacrifice Medvedev, who honestly fulfilled the agreement on Putin’s return to the Kremlin, the current president will be difficult to purely from a human point of view. But there is a logical answer to this question. “I have no doubt that there is an agreement between Putin and Medvedev: if there is a certain situation in which Putin will consider that Medvedev’s departure is politically beneficial, the prime minister agrees with such a maneuver,” says Konstantin Merzlikin, the ex-head of the White House apparatus in the Kasyanov government. - And personal relationships here do not matter. The point is that Putin is interested in certain functionality, specific tasks. Previously, to solve them, the presence of Medvedev at certain posts was important, but now there is no need for it. ”

As for the “attack on the environment of Medvedev”, in it, Merzlikin does not see some signals to the prime minister himself: “These are absolutely parallel, non-overshooting stories ... Maybe the Putin’s environment is flirting, but in essence these are all the little things-to be offended by Medvedev Putin at all.”

Revision

The preparation of public opinion for the resignation of the Cabinet of Ministers can also be considered a consistent revision of all noticeable initiatives of the previous president, which political scientist Igor Bunin, in an interview with The New Times, wittily called "Medvedev's rejection."

This happens differently. Sometimes - in the form of direct legal abolition of the Medvedev innovations. That is how it was with the return to the Criminal Code of the article “Cleveta”, which was removed from there in the last year of the presidential powers of the current prime minister. In the near future, as expected, the rule on the "zero ppm" for motorists will be legally canceled. In full readiness to accept in the State Duma, the law on the abolition of “forever summer” time lies - but so far the new authorities decided not to rush and let experts work.

"

Many regarded the demonstrative appearance of Medvedev in the company of the retired Surkov as a sensation and an attempt to at least somehow calm his subordinates

"

More often, “zeroing” is achieved by making new decisions that significantly reduce the effect of old ones. This method was applied, for example, to the “reboot” of relations with the United States, which the team of Medvedev-President was so proud of. The START-3 Treaty, which became the first result of this warming, has not yet been canceled, but the adoption of the “anti-Magnitic law”, the expulsion of a number of American NPOs from Russia, hunting for “foreign agents” and the general strengthening of anti-American propaganda actually made the efforts of “rebooters” to nothing. It seems that the amendments adopted under Medvedev, which provided the benefits of the “socially oriented” NGOs, continue to operate. Only now the prosecutors, during the ongoing general inspections, are cleaned with such NPOs no less harshly than any obviously unreliable human rights defenders. Finally, no one has yet taken away from the metropolitan mayor Sergei Sobyanin the lands transferred to him under the new Moscow - only the idea of ​​Medvedev to take all more ghostly to these territories of all federal officials. And the Kremlin has already abandoned the transfer of legislative power quite officially: the head of the presidential administration Vladimir Kozhin confirmed on May 23 on May 23 that the new parliamentary center would be built in the central part of Moscow (the exact place will be named later).

Another option for revising the heritage of Medvedev-President is a creative rethinking of his initiatives. And to their complete unrecognizability.

For example, the anti -corruption campaign eventually came to the “nationalization of elites” by returning to the homeland of their foreign assets; The objections of members of the government that this will lead to squeezing out of the power structures of those who came to the civil service from the business, did not take into account the Kremlin.

The widely advertised humanization of justice turned into a quiet sabotage from investigators and judges who, with the help of simple manipulations, bypass the legislative ban on the arrest of accused under economic articles of the Criminal Code.

The freedom of the Internet, which is so beloved by Medvedev, was really embodied in the “freedom of the switch”, when, under the pretext of protecting children, unknown officials, without special thoughts, block access to any, even the largest network resources.

Finally, a special case is the fate of the already mentioned Foundation "Skolkovo". Here, it seems, so far everything was in order: the number of residents is growing, projects are being developed, grants are issued. If sometimes investigators, as a spokeswoman for the Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin put it, “a foreign guest in the corridors of Skolkov is frightened by procedural actions”-this is just a “banal criminal prosecution for theft”. And the new revelations of the Accounts Chamber, which has opened violations when concluding contracts with a key foreign partner of Skolkov, Massachusetts Technological Institute (MIT), the exposure themselves motivate the “fund’s work in line with the law”. Moreover, they motivate quite reasonably: the fact that under the law “Skolkovo” did not have the right to issue grants at all was recognized on May 30 and the leadership of the fund.

But the question is: will the “foreign guests” who responded to the Skolkovo call will understand all these legislative subtleties? Or, having been frightened, will they prefer to go home? Then it will definitely not be possible to make a new silicone valley out of Skolkov - and on the next Medvedev project it will also be possible to put a cross.

And then? And then, from the entire Presidential Heritage of Medvedev, in fact, only one constitutional norm will remain - the term of powers of the President of the Russian Federation from four to six years. But against this initiative, Vladimir Putin seems to have nothing so far.

Photo: Reuters, Maxim Stulov/Vedomosti