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In the best traditions of the genre, President Vladimir Putin saved the main domestic policy sensation of his state of the nation address for the very end. Finishing up his discourse on the importance of December's State Duma elections, he unexpectedly announced that he considers it possible -- once the results are in -- to create a professional government based on the future parliamentary majority.
This spontaneous initiative reflects both the contradictory nature of Putin's position and the already familiar eclecticism of his political style and language.
The justification for switching to a Cabinet based on the Duma's majority was a bit confusing but, overall, correct. Putin effectively acknowledged that the infamous "vertical structure of power" -- which he has been building for three years and which was expected to help further modernize the country -- has not worked. Moreover, it is clear that reforms have been delayed recently by the acute, public disputes within the Cabinet and the executive branch as a whole. Furthermore, the giant, corrupt Russian bureaucracy continues to ignore the reform-oriented laws that Putin has managed to get through parliament in the past years. (For example, the law on registering enterprises at "one window" or the Cabinet's failure to take the necessary steps on pension reform, etc.)
This is why Putin acknowledged the need for "an additional political impulse" for the executive branch and promised that "it will be forthcoming." In this context, taking into account the Duma elections while forming the next Cabinet -- i.e. creating a political rather than technical government -- would be a big step toward establishing true public control over the all-powerful bureaucracy.
Paradoxically, however, in the political system formed under Putin, this idea can easily be implemented in form, but is almost impossible to implement in substance. Creating a political Cabinet fully accountable to parliament's majority would be possible only if December's elections were won by a Communist-led coalition (leftist government) or by a liberal coalition including the Union of Right Forces and Yabloko (liberal Cabinet).
However, that is unlikely. A far more realistic outcome looks to be the victory of a pro-presidential coalition led by United Russia. In that case, a "government of the parliamentary majority" would be fictitious, and still promoted by the presidential administration. The situation would come full circle. And, just like now, the president himself would have to struggle to keep the sluggish, unsteady ship of government afloat and on course, in spite of its tendency to make senseless maneuvers.
Implementing the idea of a Cabinet of the parliamentary majority under the "managed democracy" created by Putin is senseless. When key media are kept under control and political competition is suppressed, when parliament has been transformed into an appendage of the presidential administration, when power is centralized and "verticalized" -- under these conditions it is impossible to establish true public, parliamentary and party control over the executive branch, impossible to make the political system truly democratic.
It is possible, though, that the president's unexpected initiative was motivated by a desire to retain leadership beyond 2008 -- this time as the all-powerful prime minister of a Duma-based Cabinet under a relative figure-head of a president. But this is a remote prospect for now. Putin's political fate depends on the results of his first term and the agenda he manages to set and implement for his second term.
So far, the results do not look sufficiently impressive and there is no convincing agenda.
Judging by Putin's address, the results of his first term look contradictory. On one hand, efforts to make the country more unified and its laws more uniform have been successful. But a solution in Chechnya remains remote, population figures and life expectancy are declining. There have been some economic achievements, but economic growth is slowing each year and Russia's overall competitive edge on international markets is waning. Economic growth itself, just as the reduction of the foreign debt and the rise in reserves, is mainly the result of favorable market conditions, not government policy. Several important laws have been adopted, but their implementation leaves much to be desired. And the vital reform of the state apparatus has not yet begun.
Certainly, after the chaos of the 1990s, even this is not so bad. But neither does it amount to much for the president, who has set such ambitious tasks for himself and the nation.
The country's future looks even foggier. Doubling GDP by 2010, overcoming poverty and implementing military reform -- which has effectively been postponed once again -- are noble goals. But Putin's address did not touch on implementation. Its economic, social and foreign policy sections contained nothing fundamentally new.
Nothing but new rhetoric. For the first time, the president introduced such concepts as "consolidation of society around common values," "raising the country's competitiveness," etc. But here words and meanings got completely mixed up.
Two different images of Russia emerged. The first -- a free, democratic and open country, integrated into the world, sitting at one table with the developed democracies. The other -- "consolidated" around the authorities, where people once again perform some "heroic deed" and business is told to be "patriotic." Foreign and defense policy in this Russia looks no less eclectic.
By definition, a presidential address allows a country's leader to clearly and directly explain his political position and strategy. People may accept it or not, but they have a right to know what the nation's leader thinks and what he plans to do.
Vladimir Putin's address has left more questions than answers. But then, the absence of an answer is also an answer.
Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent Duma deputy, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.
