Politics in Russia: power, lobby, conflicts. Issue No (35) 776

August 24 - 30, 2009

Main tendencies of political week

Last week major part of the media field was devoted to foreign policy issues but to a great extent they correlated with domestic policy. In particular, on the day of the first anniversary of the recognition of independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia Dmitry Medvedev stressed that decision was the only possible and grounded. Thus, the head of state signaled that he was not going to revise the fundamentals of foreign and domestic policies. At the same time, some groups of interests expected Russian state authorities to yield to such a step under the pressure of external circumstances if not domestic ones.

Besides, the head of state indicated that he planned to further continue maintaining the interreligious balance and accusations of “creeping clericalism” and state authorities’ desire to put the Russian Orthodox Church into a privileged position did not correspond to the reality. In particular, last week during his trip to Buryatia Dmitry Medvedev met with Russian Buddhists. This meeting was important because the president declared a basic principle of interaction of the state and Russia’s major religions.

Political struggle between different players continued on this background; it had both public and administrative features. As to the first feature, these were communists who became newsmakers according to the established tradition. CPRF leader Gennady Zyuganov demanded from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to quickly provide a report about what caused the incident at the Sayano-Shushenskaya power plant. Although this initiative has almost no chance to be implemented, the leftists expect such a move to bring substantial dividends in the form of additional arguments in bargaining with state authorities to neutralize the latter’s attempts to pressurize communists.

The administrative struggle last week was also quite intensive, which was reflected in the media field. Firstly, informational pressure on the interior ministry’s top officials increased; they and the police in general are more toughly criticized. Law enforcers are criticized on different issues, which is a reflection of struggle (including internal) for the minister’s post. The position of Rashid Nurgaliyev, who until recently was considered practically invulnerable, is becoming more shaky. Finally, the staff struggle sharpened in United Russia where competition was complicated by the intention of leading inner-party groups to gain control over the process of nomination of candidates to governor posts.

Major events August 24, 2009 - August 30, 2009

Volume: 13 pages