Russian ministers resign, supposedly in protest
In a surprise move, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev resigned along with the country’s entire Cabinet, Russian state news agency Tass reported Wednesday.
Medvedev made the announcement after Russia’s President Vladimir Putin unveiled a series of constitutional changes that Medvedev said would alter the country’s balance of power. Medvedev is a longtime close Putin ally. He has served as Russia’s prime minister since 2012. Before that, he spent four years as president, 2008-12…
Tass said Putin thanked Medvedev for his service but noted that the prime minister’s Cabinet failed to fulfill all the objectives set for it. The news agency said Putin plans to name Medvedev as a deputy in Russia’s Security Council. It was not immediately clear whether Putin asked for Medvedev to go and if his role in the Security Council – which he accepted – is a promotion or a demotion.
Putin…has been in power in Russia for more than two decades…Medvedev’s resignation could be a sign that Putin wants to try to extend his 20-year rule after his term of office formally expires in 2024…
Under Russia’s existing constitution, Putin would not be entitled to seek another presidential term in four years’ time.
So, is this some sort of elaborate theater designed to give the appearance of a protest, when it actually will end up facilitating Putin’s power grab? Things are not always what they seem.
Speaking of which, there’s also this:
The constitution currently bans anyone from serving more than two consecutive presidential terms, but Putin proposed Wednesday to limit future presidents to a maximum of two terms, total.
That sounds like a limitation of the presidential role rather than an expansion, but there may be a twist here I’m not seeing. My guess is that Putin wants to expand or at least continue his own power, and that just about everything he’s proposing is an effort to accomplish that.
So far, although I’ve looked, I haven’t seen any discussion of today’s developments that seems to offer much insight. Anyone care to try? I bet I get some takers.
[NOTE: By the way, that USA Today article from which I got most of the quotes in this post also helpfully offers this tidbit as somehow relevant to the occasion:
President Donald Trump has joked several times about trying to extend his time in the White House beyond the constitutionally-mandated two, four-year terms.
“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday,” Trump said in a speech to Republican donors in 2008, speaking about China’s President Xi Jinping.
At least they acknowledge it was a joke. But there’s absolutely zero reason to put it in the article except to get people worried that Trump has something similar planned, and that his “joke” is just a pretend joke.]
I’ve seen suggested that power is transferring to the PM’s position from the Pres.; that Putin will be leaving the Presidency to take the PMship, and whoever follows in the Pres. will be diminished.
Dunno, though.
“Putin proposed Wednesday to limit future presidents to a maximum of two terms, total.”
Wouldn’t the operative word be FUTURE? Therefore, his proposal wouldn’t apply to the current president.
eeyore:
I considered that possibility. I don’t know how it would be interpreted, though, particularly if the rule was implemented while he was still president. It really depends on the statutory language (after all, we’re only reading a summary translation of the proposal) and how the Russian system operates in terms of interpreting statutes.
Is Putin always up to no good ?
US media – right and left (maybe Stephen Cohen is an exception) – seems to reflexively portray him as the contemporary Dr. Fu Manchu.
I’m hoping some commenters who have knowledge of Russian affairs will come to enlighten us. It’s hard to tell what this means.
And, yes, the Trump reference is ridiculous. That’s like taking his campaign throwaway joke about Russians finding Hillary’s emails seriously. But many Democrats did take that seriously, or at least pretended to.
It seems pretty clear that Putin will swap back and forth between President and Prime Minister to stay in the position of greatest power for life, making the necessary constitutional changes along the way.
Because Russia needs a Tsar, I guess, even if the niceties of “democratic” practice and nomenclature need to be observed.
I suspect many if not most Russians agree with him.
I am not personally acquainted with Russian power/politics. But I suspect that in the Russian dog eat dog power/political environment… the top dog does not get to peacefully ‘retire’. Too many enemies are made getting to the top and in remaining there as long as possible.
But I suspect that in the Russian dog eat dog power/political environment… the top dog does not get to peacefully ‘retire’.
Boris Yeltsin retired. Mikhail Gorbachev retired. Nikita Khruschev retired. Three of the five members of the ‘collective leadership’ which succeeded Stalin retired (one continued in charge, one was executed).
Gorbachev was forced into retirement by Yeltsin after surviving a coup d’etat.
Kruschev similarly was forced into retirement, realised that it was that or be murdered.
Yeltsin got voted out of office, first time that ever happened in that country.
Yeltsin got voted out of office, first time that ever happened in that country.
He resigned.
realised that it was that or be murdered.
You can consult Khruschev’s memoirs. When was he physically threatened?
You don’t seem to have understood his contention, which is that it is too dangerous to retire. It is not. The discrete circumstances hardly matter.
Yes, Putin always is up to no good. He is a power mad thug, completely immoral, deceptive and lying without any remorse or scruples. All this absolutely natural for anybody with his background of a KGB officer, and I am really surprized why this is not obvious to anybody who knows even basics about Russian history and the role of secret political police in totalitarian regimes. There is no crime too heinous for these people to commit.
Putin fights not only for his personal position in power, but for survival of the regime he created. He believes, with very good reasons, that this regime will collapse without him at the helm. And then everything can happen to the whole political class, including something like what happened to French aristocracy under Jacobin dictatorship.
The present situation is very unlike to that of Khruschev’s, Gorbachev or Yeltzin resignation. Nothing seriously threatened political regime then, but now the country can face a real trouble. Putin destroyed or neutered all political institutions here, replacing them by his personal dictat. Without him, there would be a real politcal and institutional vacuum, a state of anarchy.
Sergey, what are you yourself hoping will happen in this case? From what you’re saying, it sounds as if Russia is between a rock and a hard place – a thug dictator, or anarchy. What do you see as the best (or at least better) outcome?
The best possible outcome is self-organization of civil society, with new generations leaders (millenials and Gen.Z). Hopefully, with Internet this can be done much more quickly than before. In American Revolution, hand-written pamphletes done the task, and now everybody who is somebody and younger than 30 is well Internet savvy. Two years of political anarchy are survivable, and enough for emergence of a new political reality.
He is a power mad thug, completely immoral, deceptive and lying without any remorse or scruples.
Like Talleyrand, perhaps?
Since 1999, the country’s per capita income has doubled in real terms, the homicide rate has fallen by 60%, life expectancy at birth has increased by 6 years, and there’s been a partial recovery in fertility so rapid as to be almost unique in the occidental world (the total fertility rate increased from 1.2 children per woman per lifetime to 1.8 children). A bevy of present-tense macroeconomic indicators are in satisfactory ranges: inflation rate, unemployment rate, employment-to-population ratio, public sector borrowing rates, balance of payments, foreign debt accumulation &c. These have been years of circumscribed but real accomplishment for Russia, and you can’t take that away from him and his team. You’d be hard put to identify a Russian ruler who has got so much done at so little cost to his people (Stolypin, perhaps). If you survey the period running from 1789 to the present, you might find two periods (1905-17 and 1988-2004) which featured a political order more pluralistic than the one Russia has now.
Putin destroyed or neutered all political institutions here, replacing them by his personal dictat. Without him, there would be a real politcal and institutional vacuum, a state of anarchy.
I think you’ve confused Putin with the Somoza clan.
Sergey, thanks for the insights, and best wishes to your country — not to the corrupt political class, but to your country.
that this regime will collapse without him at the helm. And then everything can happen to the whole political class, including something like what happened to French aristocracy under Jacobin dictatorship.
Russia after 1991 suffered from an economic depression, a grisly crime wave, and a period where employers paid wages late if at all. The Russian state did not disappear. Russian society was badly stressed, but did not descend into true anarchy. Bad as it got was no worse than Brazil is normally. We’re not talking about shearing off national territory with an eight digit population, the mass migration of ethnic Russians from that territory to the successor state, the dismantling of an apparat which had made all consequential capital allocation decisions for 70-odd years &c &c. We’re talking about replacing one old man with a late-middle aged man out of his political stable.
Sergey, I wonder this, and ask you because I presume you speak with many ordinary Russians and hear their opinion on the question, or the absence thereof, which would also be telling: so, how do Russians look on the war crimes being committed in Syria by the Putin-Assad air forces? Namely, the years long now bombings of clinics, hospitals, schools, open-air markets, bakeries, civilian housing, civilian convoys escaping war-zones, and so on? They sanguine about this? Or despise it?
Art Deco: Pluralistic? This is sarcasm, sure? Since destructure of NTV, a really great independent TV, all we can see is official propaganda, like in Brezhnev epoch. And since annexation of Crimea there were no real economic growth, all in the rage 1-15% annual, within margin of statistical error. Ascribe to Putin the growth to which had nothing to do is totaly disingenious. This was the work of independent enterpreneurs, and in the period from 1890-1913 the growth was even stronger. Nobody ascribed it to Tzars.
Russian people would not give a rat ass to anything happening to Arabs. Not interested at all. These Asians for them are just animals.
Thanks Sergey.
“I think you’ve confused Putin with the Somoza clan.” There is not much difference between Putin and Somoza clan. The ethos and moral level is the same.
There is not much difference between Putin and Somoza clan. The ethos and moral level is the same.
I wasn’t referring to his ethos or moral level, but to the properties of the Russian state. (And Putin’s cupidity would have to be off the charts before he was contextually similar to the Somozas).
This was the work of independent enterpreneurs, and in the period from 1890-1913 the growth was even stronger. Nobody ascribed it to Tzars.
1. The matrix in which entrepreneurial activity occurs is properly ascribed to decision-makers, then as now. (Russia had six prime ministers between 1890 and 1913, Stolypin among them).
2. Per the Maddison Project, gdp per capita in real terms grew in Russia at a rate of 2.15% per annum between 1890 and 1913. The growth rate between 1999 and 2016 was 3.92% per annum.
Art Deco: Pluralistic? This is sarcasm, sure?
No, I’m not being sarcastic. You compare Russia to what is abroad and what it has been in previous eras.
all in the rage 1-15% annual, within margin of statistical error.
Aside from the typographical error, you’ve confused national income accounting with public opinion polling.
The lion’s share of GDP gowth in 2000-s was from oil and gaz revenue, and there was a huge rise in prices for these commodities in these years. Just google it, and you’ll see almost the whole history of Russian economy in one chart. As for institutional framework, since jailing Khodorkovsky, seizing his assets and giving them to his cronies, the freedom of buisness was constantly deteriorating during all years of Putin rule.
National accounting in Russia is so unreliable that often consists of random guesses based on statistical estimates of more easy accessible data correlated to issue in question. It indeed has margins of errors.
Comparison of Gorbachev era and Yeltzin era to the present is unambiguous: there were much more pluralism in politics, art, entertainment and everything else before Putin. There is just no comparison.
IMHO, to compare Putin rule to Somoza clan is too generous to Putin. It is more like Haitian kleptocracy under Papa Doc.
Techno dance song for Putin from the viewpoint of a Russian woman. Catchy. Revealing of Putin’s appeal for some.
___________________________________
One Like Putin
My boyfriend is in trouble once again:
Got in a fight, got drunk on something nasty
I’ve had enough and I chased him away
And now I want a man like Putin
One like Putin, full of strength
One like Putin, who won’t be a drunk
One like Putin, who wouldn’t hurt me
One like Putin, who won’t run away!
I’ve seen him on the news last night
He was telling us that the world has come to crossroads
With one like him, it’s easy to be home and out
And now I want a man like Putin
One like Putin, full of strength
One like Putin, who won’t be a drunk
One like Putin, who wouldn’t hurt me
One like Putin, who won’t run away!
–“Takogo Kak Putin”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlwaHdfHbJA
IMHO, to compare Putin rule to Somoza clan is too generous to Putin. It is more like Haitian kleptocracy under Papa Doc.
In your addled head only. Haiti during that interval was utterly impoverished, had completely stagnant living standards (no improvement over a period of 28 years), had no autonomous public life, and lived in terror of the TonTon Macoute. When Putin hires a couple hundred thousand criminals, dresses them in shades, suits, and hats, and has them roaming around cutting people’s throats, get back to me. When he turns the presidency over to his 19 year old son, get back to me.
National accounting in Russia is so unreliable that often consists of random guesses based on statistical estimates of more easy accessible data correlated to issue in question. It indeed has margins of errors.
Thanks for the ass-pull. It’s been an education.
The lion’s share of GDP gowth in 2000-s was from oil and gaz revenue,
No, it hasn’t. The ratio of oil and mineral exports to nominal GDP is about 0.15 right now. That ratio has not increased in the last 20 years and reliance on natural resource rents has declined by half.
Putin indeed hired about 10000 thugs, called Rosgvardia, dressed them in miliary fatigue and sent them to beat by battons peaceful protesters. In one day 1500 young people were detained, pulled into police vagons and held in police stations many hours. A 2 dozen were later accused in resistance to police and given real prison terms, up to 2 years, – for nothing.
In your addled head only. … Thanks for the ass-pull.
Art Deco: What a pleasant commenter you are! I find it detracts from your credibility, though I don’t imagine you care.
However, at this point, unless you supply links for your claims, I’ll just assume you are grinding your ax per usual.
Sergey: I look forward to more of your comments!
PBS had a good radio piece on the Putin song. It was bigger than I thought:
It’s winter in Russia. At night, Muscovites crowd the clubs and request their karaoke favorite, “A Man Like Putin.” I want a man like Putin, who’s full of strength. I want a man like Putin, who doesn’t drink. I want a man like Putin, who won’t make me sad.
The techno-pop tune by the duo Singing Together first appeared mysteriously in 2002 and quickly topped the charts in Russia. It went on to become a Putin theme song, still played at his rallies. Catchy and ironic, this was a new kind of propaganda song. Reporter Alexis Bloom arrives in Moscow to investigate the making of the song, and how it was used in Putin’s rise to power.
She meets the songwriter, Alexander Yelin, in a rehearsal studio with his all-girl heavy metal band. Yelin says he wrote “A Man Like Putin” on a $300 bet to see if he could create a hit. “All I needed was the right message,” he says. “What can a girl sing about? She can’t sing that Putin is great. That would be stupid and it wouldn’t be funny. But she can sing that everything around her sucks, and she needs a man like Putin.”
Yelin enlists his old friend, producer Nikolai Gastello, who was working in the Kremlin as head of the press department for the Russian federal courts. They recruit singer Yana Daneiko and dancer Irina Kozlova, who say Putin is not only their chosen leader, but also their ideal man. Once they find a Putin impersonator, Anatoly Gorbunov, to portray their president, the stage is set to create their music video.
Not all Russians find the song amusing. Sergei Buntman, the founder of Echo of Moscow Radio and an outspoken Putin critic, says the song plays into Putin’s control of the media. “There’s no TV station broadcasting to the whole country, where something serious might be said about politics,” he says. “In this country there is no alternative thought.”
http://www.pbs.org/soundtracks/stories/putin/
Just see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Moscow_protests
Citation from the main economics analist, Rosbuisnessconsulting:
As one of the world’s top producers of natural gas and oil, Russia’s economy is heavily reliant on exports of its resources. These resources added up to a combined 55.2 trillion rubles ($844.58 billion) in value as of 2017, or 60 percent of Russia’s GDP that year, RBC reported.
Citation from the main economics analist, Rosbuisnessconsulting:
The actual data is available from the World Bank, and, no, the actual ratio is nowhere near that. You’d be hard put to find any country on the globe for which the ratio of oil and mineral exports to nominal GDP is anywhere near that. Even the Gulf emirates are not oil dependent to that degree.
Art Deco: What a pleasant commenter you are! I find it detracts from your credibility, though I don’t imagine you care.
You’re perfectly happy with his bluster and hand-waving when he’s confronted with actual data, so, no, I’m not interested in what you find ‘credible’ or not.
Art Deco: Unless you supply links, from hereon I’ll consider your comments to be “bluster and hand-waving.”
Actual data is backed up with cites, not just an obnoxious person’s say-so.
See this: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/14/russias-natural-resources-valued-at-60-of-gdp-a64800
This includes also gold, diamonds and other natural resources exports.
Art Deco: Unless you supply links, from hereon I’ll consider your comments to be “bluster and hand-waving.”
https://databank.worldbank.org/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators
You can construct a data table a menu of hundreds of variables, time periods of your choice, and countries of your choice.
This includes also gold, diamonds and other natural resources exports.
Why are you quoting an English-language newspaper when the actual data from the World Bank is online?
Art Deco:
What’s this “ass-pull” business? And “In your addled head only”?
Warning for language and personal insults. I don’t mind disagreement at all, and even strong disagreements, but cut out the personal stuff or it gets out of hand. I’ve written about this issue many times.
Sergey:
Thanks for the valuable background information.
World Bank. Russian Federation
Fuel exports (% of merchandise exports)
2012 70.9
2013 71.2
2014 69.9
2015 63
2016 47.2
2017 59.1
My apologies.I used a World Bank dataset I had downloaded several months ago.The World Bank has more current data online. The new data agrees pretty much with the old data through 2016, but not for 2017. It adds 2018.
Fuel exports (% of merchandise exports):Russian Federation
2012 70.9
2013 71.2
2014 69.9
2015 63.0
2016 48.3
2017 49.1
2018 52.0
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/TX.VAL.FUEL.ZS.UN
Regarding bringing Haiti into the argument, I am reminded of defenders of Castroite Cuba, in response to some criticism of Castroite Cuba, coming up with the rejoinder that Cuba is better off than Haiti. But that was also the rejoinder 60 years ago. Off the top of my head, Cuba’s Life Expectancy is now about 15 years greater than Haiti’s.In 1960 the difference was 22 years.
Fuel exports (% of merchandise exports)
That’s as a share of merchandise exports, not total production. Merchandise exports have accounted for about 20-25% of nominal gross domestic product in recent years. Exported fuels and ores thus accounted for about 15% of total production
Just for comparison’s sake: fuel, ores and metals, agricultural raw materials, and food in 2018 accounted for 65% of Russia’s merchandise exports and these exports accounted for 17.6% of total production. In regard to Australia, these four categories accounted for 67.5% of merchandise exports and these exports accounted for 12% of total production. (Australia’s mix is more diversified at this time, with less oil and more in the way of ores, metals, and foodstuffs).
Anyone care to try? I bet I get some takers.
nope… too tired of repeating things…