Politics in Russia: power, lobby, conflicts. Issue No (53) 741

December 22-28, 2008

Main tendencies of political week

Due to obvious reasons last week’s leitmotiv was drawing up the 2008 results and making forecasts for 2009. In particular, President Dmitry Medvedev drew up the 2008 results simultaneously testing a new format for the head of state – a problem interview with leading domestic TV channels. Issues regarding purely domestic politics occupied a minor part in his speech compared to his Address due to understandable reasons: the crisis of international institutions and the financial and economic crisis have been the major events this year. Nevertheless Dmitry Medvedev paid noticeable attention to army reforms, having indirectly confirmed that state authorities are concerned with growth in protest sentiments among officers. The issue of relations inside the tandem was traditionally raised: the head of state again confirmed that the president and the PM had worked well together.

The consequences of the crisis are still the mainstream that more and more negatively influence the situation. Authorities are trying to operatively react to current challenges and control the vector of protest sentiments, rather than the sentiments themselves. More attention has been paid lately to the so-called white collars who were unattended in the rich 2000s in contrast to pensioners, blue collars and cheated individuals who invested their funds in house construction. At the same time, the protest potential of this social group is noticeably exaggerated. This group is concentrated mainly in large cities where there are opportunities to find alternative jobs, although less prestigious and less paid. While the economy is landing softly, white collars will prefer individual strategies of adapting themselves to the situation.

Amid the deterioration of the crisis it is becoming clear that previous inside-elite configurations, especially among major businessmen, are changing seriously and will be changing. Among the winners have been those representatives of the elite who have access to state resources and control them, which is even more important, and thus dictate their conditions to the defeated.

Amid intensification of mass politics the state’s desire to use not only the carrot like in the rich 2000s but also the stick is becoming more noticeable. Actions of the Moscow region’s Zubr special police unit in Vladivostok is a vivid example of this. Simultaneously there is a tendency of a growing role of repressive means in modern Russian politics, which is attributed to rising instability and the necessity to ensure stability of the political system.

Major events December 22 - December 28, 2008

 Volume: 14 pages