People tend to forget the fact that under Russia's 1993 post-Soviet constitution, the prime minister is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the president. When Boris Yeltsin was president, he appointed and fired no fewer than six prime ministers before finally settling on Vladimir Putin in 1998.
Dimitry Medvedev named Putin -- Yeltsin's successor and two-term president in his own right -- prime minister out of political necessity, given the fact that Medvedev was an unknown figure when Putin designated him as HIS successor in 2007. Now, after a year in office, President Medvedev is asserting his authority, reversing many of Putin's policies.
There's little that Putin can do about it, for he knows that Medvedev can fire him if he crosses the boss one time too many. Ironically, Barack Obama's election as U.S. president may have given Medvedev the upper hand, given the frosty relationship between Putin and George W. Bush.
Medvedev’s Moscow Spring
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The risk is that even if Medvedev's reform efforts are genuine, they could come to nothing. Some old-school members of Putin's circle—especially those who personally benefited from the breakup of Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil company—could try to derail Medvedev's liberal agenda. One fairly simple way would be to reignite last summer's war with Georgia. And if Medvedev's anticorruption drive finally brings some sticky-fingered bureaucrats to justice, few of them are likely to be from the inner circle. For all the skepticism, however, many liberals are cautiously optimistic. As they see it, even if spring isn't quite here yet, at least the ice has started to break.
© 2009
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