President Putin and Unified Russia

[victor]

President Putin and Unified Russia:
the first fruits of a marriage of convenience

On December 2, 2007, elections took place to the fifth convocation of the Russian State Duma. Predictably, the party Unified Russia (also known as United Russia), that supports President Putin, gained a constitutional majority (315 seats out of 450). Another party supportive of Putin – A Just Russia -- gained a further block of seats in the Duma. Unified Russia described the parliamentary elections as a referendum on whether there should be trust in President Putin.

If for the time being we exclude from our analysis the problem of fairness and freedom in the conduct of the elections, one may point to their three main results. Firstly, Putin is now able to move amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in order to prolong his own presidential authority. Secondly, under current legislation Putin can give prominence in forthcoming presidential elections to two regular candidates whom he especially trusts - one from Unified Russia, another from A Just Russia. Thirdly, he has lost about 7 million voters by comparison with those who voted for him in the presidential elections of 2004. Clearly, the third outcome counteracts the first one, lowering its probability, while at the same time it raises the probability of the second one.

How will Putin act in this situation? My answer is – Putin will nominate his own candidates for the post of Russian President and replace one of them with himself in four years or earlier. This conclusion is based on the following simple model. It has two players - Putin and the West. This is because the parliamentary elections have shown that inside Russia Putin has no significant opponents.



According to this model, the West has two dilemmas concerning Putin - rejection and persuasion dilemmas. The first dilemma is actually insoluble: the West can neither completely accept nor reject Putin's position. In the first case the West compromises itself, in the second case the West has no right to sanction because all Putin's actions are lawful. The resolution of the second dilemma for the West is also lost: Putin's position and the threatened future are actually equivalent and the West has no serious sanctions against Putin. Hence, in the near future nothing can change the prospective succession of events in Russia.

[Politico]

Victor, it seems to me that your analysis is quite accurate, but is contradicted by your model.

You say "Putin's position and the threatened future are actually equivalent", & I agree with this. But it is not the case in your model.

The options board that models what you are saying is, I think, the following one.



Here, Putin does not ask for Western acceptance of his position. He says he will do what is right for Russia, whether the West likes it or not. As a result, the West has a rejection dilemma because, as you say, the threatened future is actually an implementation of Putin's position.

Putin may actually welcome Western opposition, rather than the opposite, because it makes him popular with the Russian people.

With this change, I think your model & your analysis are quite accurate. The West has dilemmas; Putin does not.

However, I would point out that it is dangerous to leave powerful parties with unresolved dilemmas. The danger for Putin & Russia is that the West will start to react by punishing Russia in more important ways. Have you seen the current issue of the Economist, an influential Western magazine? It advocates excluding Russian deputies from the Council of Europe and Russia from the G8.

Of course, Putin might say he does not care if the West takes these actions also. This might provoke the West to take still tougher action.

A methodological point is that the aim of dilemma analysis is not just to point to dilemmas. It is to try to foresee parties' reactions to the dilemmas they face.

[victor]

Dear Politico,

Your correction is valuable and well-reasoned. I should just add that inside Russia there is such pressure upon Putin to remain in power during the third presidential term that, in my judgement, only the possibility of international disapproval can stop him from this step.

Victor

[victor]

It has just become known that four Russian parties - Unified Russia, A Just Russia, the Agrarian party of Russia and Civil Force - have nominated as candidate for President of the Russian Federation the first vice-premier Dmitry Medvedev. Putin has approved this nomination.

If we take into consideration that Putin and Medvedev are familiar with each other and have worked together for about 17 years and that Medvedev is absolutely loyal to Putin and dependent on him, then the assumption in my message of 6th December 2007, is fully confirmed.

Victor