Politics in Russia: power, lobby, conflicts. Issue No (31-33) 772 - 774

July 27 - August 16, 2009

Main tendencies of political week

Over the past three weeks the old political season has gradually transformed into a new one. In particular, state authorities represented by Dmitry Medvedev started forming the new season’s agenda and they made it in an updated format. Meetings of the head of state with representatives of parties and the civil society that have taken place over the past few months are likely to become constant and the future agenda will be tested at them. This provides the head of state with another institutionalized channel of feedback from the population, while his partners in the dialogue will be able to inform the country’s highest instance on issues they consider urgent.

Strangely enough but the 10^th anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s appointment as PM practically did not influence formation of the agenda last week. Although there were attempts to sum up the results of “Putin’s decade”, on the whole they were not in the center of the informational field but rather on its periphery. This is likely to be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, Vladimir Putin has not left big politics, so it is early to draw up the results of his activities. Secondly, the intermediate results of his presidency were summed up about a year ago and there was no reason to reiterate them.

Another factor influencing the agenda is the upcoming election to the Moscow City Duma. It will become indicative from the point of view of changing rules of the game on the party field amid the crisis and this is exactly why it has a federal importance. Judging by initial signs, the election campaign will be inertial but with some changes regarding the increase in the level of competitiveness of the election process.

The level of inner-elite struggle remained high but it was getting more and more latent. In particular, the bill on disciplinary court submitted by the president to the State Duma is to redistribute authority in the sphere of control over judges from the Supreme Court to the Supreme Arbitration Court. The latter is chaired by Dmitry Medvedev’s team member Anton Ivanov. Consequences of the president’s order to check activities of state corporations are unknown yet. There unlikely to be serious redistribution of assets following the checks but some players may lose part of control over property.

Major events July 27 - August 16, 2009

Volume: 14 pages