Putin’s plans: No triumph for democracy
Although it looked like a good story out of Russia, further examination of Vladimir Putin’s new plans shows that there are major changes in how the sprawling country is run … and the matrix is not a triumph for democracy.
Close examination of the dictator’s program shows the changes won’t dilute his personal power, they won’t invigorate the institutions of state or advance the cause of decentralization. And they definitely won’t solve Russia’s economic problems or address the festering problem of corruption.
It was 20 years ago that Putin first rose to the presidency on New Year’s Day. He did so as the chosen heir of Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president.
Observers around the world soon figured out that Putin’s ideas about governance differed strongly from those of his predecessor.
The Yeltsin era had brought freedom but also chaos and Putin didn’t care for either.
Yet the observers found that Putin couldn’t reject all the institutions his nation had inherited from the 1990s.
If he did so, it would have undermined his own legitimacy. Oddly enough, he was still claiming to be a democrat, despite emerging evidence to the contrary.
He made a point of hanging on to the Yeltsin-era constitution, a document that had won praise.
It enshrines parliamentary democracy, independence of the judiciary and freedom of speech (aside from a rigging project in 2008 that increased presidential term limits from four to six years).
Putin couldn’t just junk the constitution. It would have looked like a terrible change for a leader who promised to replace anarchy. Putin said the new program would be called “dictatorship of law.”
Christian Caryl, writing for the Washington Post, said Putin insisted he was favoring stability, predictability, and sticking to the rules.
But now, the constitution seems to have gone from being a useful prop to an obstacle. The document prohibits a president from serving more than two consecutive terms, meaning that Putin will have to step down from his current office in 2024.
In 2008, he swapped jobs with then-prime minister Dmitry Medvedev; four years later he sent Medvedev back to the prime minister’s position and moved back into the Kremlin, where he’s been ever since.
Russians still refer to the move as “the castling,” like the chess move.
During Medvedev’s single term as president, Putin was still the puppet master, pulling the strings.
In 2020, both Medvedev and the constitution have become expendable. Medvedev (along with the rest of his cabinet) has announced his resignation; Putin is replacing him with the top tax official.
Putin’s precise plans remain unclear — but aside from shifting some of the powers of the president to the legislature, he’s also said he wants to give new authority to the state council, an institution that has never played a particularly important role before.
Americans can acquire a useful lesson in the harsh realities of dictatorship.
Post writer Caryl spotlights some of the important flaws in the Russian plan: In autocracies, constitutions or written laws don’t matter. What matters is who wields power. Who appoints government bureaucrats to their jobs? Who gives orders to judges or tax inspectors? Who has ultimate purview over the media? And, most crucial, who controls the guns—the military, the secret police, the security services?
World leaders should avoid adopting Putin’s ideas which could lead to quick sand whirlpools of more misery. The dictator models never benefit the people of the nation – just one power-hungry, dangerous individual.
As Vladimir Putin seeks to redesign a dictatorship form of government, he is destined to sail off many cliffs.