RUSSIA: A PECULIAR RELATIONSHIP

PHOTO: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT DMITRIY MEDVEDEV.

Dmitri Medvedev arrived The Kremlin in May 2008. He had replaced Vladimir Putin as president of Russia. Tongues wagged then. Why did Putin select unknown Medvedev, many asked? They still do. And more questions have been added like ‘who is really in charge of Russia?’ Americans, for instance, worry about that. Powerful nations like to identify a head, the man in charge. It’s why they place an emperor in the White House. Diplomacy is much easier to conduct when a people’s leader is known. Yet those that worry about Russia have more reasons than this.

Putin spent eight years in power. He arrived office after Boris Yeltsin left. There was something weak about the man – Yeltsin, considering the challenge of Russia at the time. His successor was fresh air, the type found in the far-flung eastern ice-covered end of monstrously large Russia. That was a big country to rule – in every sense of the word.

Forces that should be brought under control were as large and diverse as its landscape. Mikhail Gorbachev gave a scattered Russia, former communist Soviet Union, to Yeltsin who in turn failed to effectively reign in the chaos. Western world praised Putin when he began to gather Russia under his wings. Everyone who understood uses of power agreed he was one strong individual. Guess a former KGB man, with the rank of lieutenant colonel, should be. Analysts said he was what Russia needed.

And there was that thing about the mentality of an average Russian. He or his parents had lived under the likes of Josef Stalin, the supreme dictator. More than five generations of Russians grew up under that atmosphere from 1917 to 1989. It made Russians yearned for a Putin when chaos reigned after the collapse of communism. The man proved capable at that point when democracy, freedom and capitalism, meaning Coca-Cola and  Kentucky Chicken, had arrived the streets of Moscow. Inflation had accompanied that free market. But that was at one level. Smart men with big hands had a good time becoming billionaires in matters of months, something unheard of in communist Soviet Union.

And there were challenges over the control of nuclear power plants too, not to mention the nukes from Soviet era that were not effectively supervised. Uranium became one ton per penny. There was cash and carry trading in other nuclear materials, many of which freely moved across Russian borders into dangerous hands. It was no wonder Western leaders welcomed Putin when he reined all that in. But the same reason made them ask why he selected Medvedev to replace him. More so as he decided to hang around as the Prime Minister.

"Mr. Medvedev, who is in charge in Russia,?" the president had been asked repeatedly. "The Russian constitution is clear on this; the president is in charge," had been his typical response. Happenings in Russia did not bear that out for the rest of 2008 in the first instance. All the signs pointed to Putin, the Prime Minister, observers insisted. But the President engaged in things too. Things such as judicial reforms. He also campaigned against corruption, and loosened the noose around business contrary to his Prime Minister’s action.

Other factors conspired to make the president look like he was not in charge however. Russia engaged in war with Georgia, a former Republic in the collapsed Soviet Union. International criticism trailed Russia, and so was its economy that took a hit. Analysts used the occasion to conclude that Medvedev’s agenda for his country failed. Then the president lost whatever steam he had earlier on. Putin showed more presence on the Russian stage at that point. More occurrences within the country were dissected by Russian watchers. And they arrived at the same conclusions like Russians who said in polls that their Prime Minister was in charge.

In the event, watchers said what happened in Russia is that Medvedev take initiatives but largely leave the decisions to Putin. Whatever that may mean. The thinking had been that Medvedev would take full charge by the time he reaches two years in office. That has meaning. The president would push Putin aside and assert himself; he would rock the boat and overturn it. It is May 2010, two years after he arrived, and it has not happened. Russia is on the path to greater stability and economic achievements.

The relationship between the president and his Prime Minister still stands. And it may yet stand. Why? Medvedev had worked under Putin before. He is Putin’s boy. He owes his rise politically to him. Both met 19 years ago when they worked for the Mayor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak. Mr. Putin was named prime minister in 1999, then acting president, after Boris Yeltsin resigned. He was elected president of Russia in 2000, and he invited Medvedev to work for him in Moscow. Medvedev rose to become chief of staff, made chairman of the state gas monopoly, Gazprom, and later held the post of first deputy prime minister before he was elected president.

In Russia, being a boy to a boss is cherished. Remaining where you are in such a relationship is seen as a virtue too. Medvedev is president; his former boss is his Prime Minister. Putin one's former boss’ hands in fire is frowned upon by Russians, the reason most have no problem with the relationship their current president maintains with Putin; it’s one reason they are comfortable with the seemingly double leadership in power. Watchers may look at strange relationship; but Medvedev and Putin focus on Russia, they are agreed on the need to work for the good of Russia only. This is an unfolding relationship, an unfolding drama that continues to intrigue many.

But more importantly, it holds lessons. Many in power on the African continent have been known to shame their former bosses, and through this bring divisions along various lines into their country. Several President-Prime Minister relationships here have led to serious problems like what happened in Kenya and in Zimbabwe. Some problems among leaders had led to civil wars in which lives in hundreds of thousands were lost. For all the perceived faults and criticisms trailing it, perhaps there is something to learn from the two year old relationship between Russia’s two most powerful leaders after all.   

Ajibade, a Consultant Writer, lives in Abuja. email: tunjioa@yahoo.com.