Vladimir Putin’s fourth – and formally last – term began with an increase in the retirement age: the government has been preparing for pension reform for the last few years, and as soon as the president received an updated mandate, it began implementing it in a very technocratic manner. This is very similar in its management style to a corporate decision made within a giant business structure with strict internal subordination. The reform was quietly approved in the Kremlin offices, and then, without alternative, was brought to parliament, completely ignoring political factors: the problem of elite responsibility, the weak legitimacy of the decision, as well as the unpopularity of the reform, unprecedented for the Putin regime. Raising the retirement age was not only a blow to ratings, but also a major test for the establishment.

When government decisions are carried out by technocrats, the preconditions for political crises are laid. Raising the retirement age was announced as a practically accepted decision in April 2018. Only three months have passed since then, and during this relatively short period the political class has found itself in a situation of an unusual crisis - a crisis of political responsibility with increasing conflict within the government, the fact that Vladimir Putin was eradicated from the system by hard-fought political reforms throughout his first presidential term.

Conflict of responsibility

Dmitry Medvedev was the first to announce the reform on April 28, 2018 in an interview with Vesti Nedeli. At that time, a new government had not even been formed, and the social bloc, awaiting a shake-up, was categorically against raising the retirement age. It would seem that here he is, the main political kamikaze - the prime minister, awaiting reappointment and doomed to implement decisions that will most likely turn him into one of the most hated figures for Russians, easily ranking with the anti-heroes of the 90s - Yegor Gaidar, Anatoly Chubais, Viktor Chernomyrdin. However, nothing of the kind happens: Medvedev, having turned out to be the highest-ranking official promoting reforms, did not throw himself into the breach and somehow gradually disappeared into the fog of general political irresponsibility for the decision being made. And the quick submission of the relevant bill to the State Duma immediately made the lower house of parliament the center of this painful process.

The main speaker from the government on the reform was not Medvedev at all, but two depoliticized figures: the co-author of the reform, Anton Siluanov, and the technical executor, Minister of Labor and Social Protection Maxim Topilin. Medvedev did not even come to the State Duma when the bill was considered in the first reading - Topilin had to take the rap for the entire cabinet of ministers. All this largely refutes the popular narrative that Medvedev is expendable for Putin’s fourth term. The main “reformer” turned out not to be him at all, but the Ministry of Finance, cynically and in an accounting manner insisting on the need to raise the retirement age and cutting off any paths to compromise.

The State Duma also found itself in a strange position: the leadership of the lower house of parliament embraced the reform like burning coals thrown in its direction - they had to support it, gritting their teeth in pain. Hence the emergence of completely unusual forms of political sabotage for the well-coordinated Putin regime: attempts by the speaker of the State Duma to appeal to the presidential administration and get from it wider participation of the authorities in public discussion (as well as sanctions on the discussion itself), moaning about incorrectly drawn up conclusions of regional legislative assemblies, promises to review and soften the reform in the second reading, inconsistent with the Kremlin. The main speakers on the reform were figures associated with the name of State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin - the head of the United Russia faction Sergei Neverov and his deputy Andrei Isaev.

Pension reform inevitably became one of the factors that aggravated the contradictions between the new leadership of United Russia, represented by Andrei Turchak, and Volodin. Secretary of the Party General Council Turchak, who spoke on June 22, only called on his colleagues for unity and warned against criticism of the reform. It sounded like a reproach to United Russia deputies in the State Duma and deputies in regional legislative assemblies. United Russia is becoming more and more clearly polarized between faction and party: Turchak is trying to stay publicly aloof from the pension reform, counting on the faction controlled by Volodin to do the dirty work, while the faction pretends to be the only politically responsible force in the country. “United Russia” is finding it increasingly difficult to maintain unity: on July 26, information appeared that the Deputy Secretary of the General Council of “United Russia” Sergei Zheleznyak submitted his resignation, and the only one who voted against the reform, Natalya Poklonskaya, found herself in disgrace.

And what about the Kremlin in the background of all this? The main person responsible for domestic policy, Sergei Kiriyenko, is not formally involved in promoting the pension reform, but in reality he becomes its key shadow manager, whose tasks include pushing it through the efforts of the entire party-legislative vertical. There is reason to believe that back in April the Kremlin, in a very narrow composition, decided to achieve quick and unconditional adoption of the bill in the first reading, which was supposed to fix the obviously inflated rates. The task was to convince the elite that the reform, if at all, would be softened, it would be minimal, and the adoption of the bill must take place at any cost within the designated period of July 19. This was precisely the first stage of the main special operation at the beginning of Putin’s fourth term.

Managed rollback

Immediately after the first reading, the second stage of this special operation began - a controlled rollback and the emergence of a field for discussion. Literally the day after the first reading, July 20, Vladimir Putin commented on the reform for the first time, who, to simplify, said the main thing: “no final decision has been made.” State Duma deputies, deprived of room for maneuver and voting unanimously for the reform, found themselves framed. Thanks to them, a step-by-step plan was implemented to promote a long-ago decision, according to which the most severe option is first presented to the public, and then, at the initiative of the president, it is softened to more socially acceptable forms. The State Duma tried to play the role of protector of pensioners (the main thesis was “increasing pensions”), but turned out to be an “evil investigator.”

Against the backdrop of all this, one thing is surprising - the political extravagance of the president and his administration. The decision to raise the retirement age without dialogue with society and without a comprehensive social program to improve the quality of life was pushed through at the expense of the political capital of the lower house of parliament, the government and regional authorities. At the same time, the regions in which elections are planned in September were, to one degree or another, relieved of the burden, but this approach does not take into account the medium-term consequences - voting in the regions takes place not once every six years, but annually, which means that negative consequences are inevitable for everyone regions where elections will be held in the coming years. Such a selective approach to regional United Russia members, when some are allowed to evade complicity in an unpopular decision, while others are left with no room for maneuver, will corrode the vertical.

The main challenge of pension reform for the regime is that each center of influence, in a crisis of political responsibility, is trying to use the situation to weaken its “opponents.” The curators of domestic policy, remaining politically in the shadows, benefit from the weakening of Volodin and his people, thrown into the very epicenter of pension reform. The State Duma resists this order with all its might, pumping up its “subjectivity” and independence, which is unusual for the Putin system. Turchak, who received control of United Russia, was stuck between two fires, having not yet learned to perceive the party in power as his domain (he is not yet becoming one), but at the same time dreaming of eliminating the “faction” from it in its current form and institutionalizing in the vertical.

The only source of legitimacy for the current regime is Vladimir Putin. But now, for the first time, it is simultaneously becoming a source of delegitimation - a careless attitude towards the party in power, the federal and legislative parliaments, regional elites when pushing through pension reform, to which Putin publicly supposedly has nothing to do with, an extremely risky game that can deal a blow to the system as a whole. It is certainly possible to play back (soften the bill) (and this will be done in the fall). However, it will be much more difficult to convince society that the Putin regime continues to exist, despite the strange adoption of a non-Putin decision (the bill in the first reading). "Where is the president?" - a question that is increasingly heard on the sidelines, formulating a counter: “Can a regime in which a critically significant reform starts without a president be called Putin’s?” If the trend of de-Putinization of the regime continues, then it will no longer be Putin who will be engaged in preparing the transition of power by 2024, but the system will be engaged in Putin’s transit.

The article was prepared for the analytical project “Plan for Change” WWW.PLANPEREMEN.ORG

The author is the head of the analytical firm R.Politik

Why pension reform is dangerous for Putin