| TO WEAKEN PRIME MINISTER. RESHUFFLES IN THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT 
OLEG REUT,
Director of the “European Debates” workshop of the Eurasia Heritage Foundation The composition of the new Russian Cabinet that was announced on September 24 failed to bring about dramatic changes that many anticipated. The observers were looking forward to the transformations that would show the outline of the future government. Most Russian political analysts were trying to forecast what the future Cabinet would be. Some of them started working out the theoretical substantiation of why wide powers must not be vested in one person’s hands. But the appointments fell short of all the unreasonably high expectations. The affair resembles much the recent interchange of Vladimir Ustinov and Yury Chaika between offices of Prosecutor-General and Minister of Justice, which only resulted in weakening Vladimir Ustinov’s position. The current reshuffles, however, have two finer points.
Firstly, the three Ministers were expected to be dismissed. Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov was simply charged with this mission. In due course it may become obvious that it was the only mission of the elderly politician, who had ignominiously lost the governor election in the Leningrad region eight years ago.
Vladimir Yakovlev’s days, as Minister of the Regional Development, were numbered already in June. It became clear when Yury Perelygin resigned as Director of the Regional Social and Economic Development and Territorial Planning Department. He had been working as the supervisor of studies of the Foundation “Center for Strategic Research North-West” for more than two years. Recently Yury Perelygin has got to work for Open Joint-Stock Company “Gazpromheft” as the Deputy Head of the Department on Capital Construction.
Mikhail Zurabov was fired to the effect that the United Russia party would have no reason to use the dismissal as one of its trump cards during the election campaign. The former Minister of Public Health and Social Development carried out comprehensive reforms that a priori could not be carried out smoothly and suit the majority of people. The efforts to combine the incompatible concepts “market regulation” and “benefit support” were doomed to failure or, at least, to severe criticism. Especially as the presidential administration insists on solving the problems in a technocratic way, not turning it into a political issue.
Although the both Ministers were not protégés of informal Kremlin factions, their future is likely to be completely different. It is not evident what Vladimir Yakovlev will do after his dismissal, while Mikhail Zurabov can do almost any big business. The both political figures are of different ages and have different values. Vladimir Yakovlev’s work in Mikhail Fradkov’s Cabinet resulted from the agreement according to which he had to give up St. Petersburg’s governorship. But now the term of agreement has expired...
It is difficult to regard the situation with German Gref’s leaving the Cabinet as a dismissal. There are only two failures among the shortcomings of the former Minister’s activity who by the way continues his work as Chairman of Board of the Center of Strategic Research. The first point is his failure to accomplish the political macro task to get positive results in the negotiations on Russia’s joining the World Trade Organization, which was set by the President. German Gref put off the work for several years and as a result did nothing. The second shortcoming is German Gref’s inclination to openly express his disagreement with former Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov. He could make his teasing and arrogant stinging remarks towards refined and good-natured Mikhail Fradkov. But it won’t work with Viktor Zubkov, if to take his age and experience into consideration.
Now, about the second point of the recent reshuffles in the Russian government. All the September 24 appointments were aimed at weakening the Prime Minister’s position and diluting his powers to a considerable degree. The Russian policy-makers will have to watch the Prime Minister turning into technical figure until March 2008. By the way, the Cabinet became two-party when the Fair Russia member, Aleksander Sokolov stayed on as Minister of Culture and Mass Communications.
The moment Viktor Zubkov criticized the administrative reform, its author, Chairman of the Center for Strategic Research Board of Trustees Dmirty Kozak was returned from the Caucasus. The moment Viktor Zubkov made it clear that he kept the Minister of Finances at arm’s length (who advised the top governing body to pension Viktor Zubkov off and grant him an honorary pension two months ago), Alexei Kudrin became the Vice-Premier and was granted wider powers. The moment Viktor Zubkov taunted German Gref about “young reformers”, Elvira Nabiullina became Minister for Economic Development and Trade. She is even more liberal economist than her predecessor Gref, in 2003-2005 she was President of the Center for Strategic Research and from 2006 to 2007 she was the manager of the Center’s research group. The President’s refusal to dismiss Viktor Zubkov’s son-in-law Anatoliy Serdyukov (Defense Minister) is a weighty psychological factor seriously limiting the room for a large-scale political maneuver to the Premier. It is almost classical illustration of the checks and balances. Everybody is being checked-up. Everything is being counterbalanced. The process is far from being complete. We can observe the dynamic instability in the Cabinet with the only “center for strategic research” being situated in the Kremlin.
The new Cabinet’s composition shows that the number of the liberal economy supporters in the government will stay the same, and we won’t see the conflicts among the Kremlin and near-Kremlin clans and factions deteriorate. The “Successor” operation will start later.
September 30, 2007
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