Putin is a self-sufficient and confident leader. This is both a positive and a negative. He has a systemic approach and a cohesive picture in his head that helps him orient himself in domestic affairs. These are his strong points as a politician.
Valdaiclub.com interview with Nikolai Zlobin, Senior Fellow and Director of the Russia and Asia Programs at the World Security Institute in Washington, D.C.
What are your impressions of the Q&A session with the prime minister?
My impressions are mixed. On the one hand, Putin is a self-sufficient and confident leader. This is both a positive and a negative. Of course, he has a systemic approach and a cohesive picture in his head that helps him orient himself in domestic affairs. These are his strong points as a politician.
However, there is a question of whether this picture accurately reflects what is happening in Russia now. I’m not sure that Putin has an adequate sense of what is actually going on in the country. In fact, nobody would claim to be sure about this apart from Putin, who considers his view to be objective.
In this sense, his strong and weak points stem from the same sources – self-sufficiency that may turn into self-confidence, a systemic approach that may be fundamentally wrong, and a cohesive picture that may fall apart because it is based on facts that are not entirely objective.
Did Putin say anything new compared to the Valdai meeting?
Yes. First, at the Q&A session Putin received many more questions about domestic affairs than at the Valdai meeting. This is only natural because at Valdai meetings the questions come primarily from international experts. The Q&A session resulted in much more information than the Valdai meeting.
Second, although we spoke about discontent and potential instability at the Valdai meeting, now we have seen that the protests are gaining ground. During the first part of the session, there was an effort to gauge Putin’s attitude toward the demonstration on Bolotnaya Square. I think Putin believes that part of Russian society considers him and his policy to be absolutely unacceptable, but maybe I’m wrong. Nonetheless, I don’t think he wants to win over his opponents or to antagonize them. He intends to ignore them or ridicule them as he did during the session. This is a certain weakness of power because a politician at this level should try to make his opponents at least neutral.
Third, speaking about the recent Duma and future presidential elections, Putin emphatically ignored the existing multi-party structure. I think Putin does not care too much about the current political structure in the country. It’s as if he exists outside it and is trying to position himself as a supra-partisan or national leader that is above the fray, including party squabbles.
Quite recently Putin said in public, during Valdai meetings as well, that the next presidential elections must be the election of a president from a party. Now he would like to forget his proposal and will be trying to run for the post as the president of the entire nation. Let’s wait and see how this works for him.
Are you satisfied with Putin’s answer to your question?
Yes and no. The format of the session dictates the rules. During Valdai meetings we talk as professionals, but during the Q&A session Putin tried to explain his view to the entire nation, to voters who live in different parts of the country and are not very interested in the vicissitudes of big time politics. This is normal public conduct for any politician before elections. This is the Western style, and Obama would have answered the questions in much the same way.
As an expert, I wasn’t satisfied with his answer, but that wasn’t his intention. His answer was geared to some grandma in the Urals, some grandpa in the Far East or someone in Siberia. He wasn’t addressing the political scientists Zlobin and Rahr, Dr. Roshal, or the actor Bondarchuk. He was trying to present his position on Russia-West relations and score as many points as possible.
Do you see the anti-Western attitudes of Russian politicians as campaign rhetoric? Is the West really opposed to Putin’s return to power? Do they see him as a difficult partner?
Russia has cause for concern over some Western moves, but anti-Western attitudes are largely campaign rhetoric that may disappear from Russian foreign policy after the elections. Regrettably, it is much easier for Russian politicians to build a political career on confrontation with the West than on cooperation with it. Using the image of the foreign enemy to mobilize voters is an old trick.
I think that the image of NATO and the United States as enemies was used in the pre-election Duma debates as a way to change the subject. As a result, the issue of nationalism and the Russian question receded into the background. All of a sudden, the debates focused on missile defense and a new Cold War. I think that without this the election results would have been even worse for the ruling party. The same tactic is likely to be used in the presidential election as well.
The main challenges to Russia’s national security do not come from the West. They are linked with domestic political and economic problems, social discontent, ethnic conflicts, demographic problems and many other outstanding domestic issues related to values.
In serious Western circles, there is an understanding that Russia is going through an election cycle that requires a mobilizing, anti-Western agenda. Many in the West hope that if Putin becomes president he will continue his anti-Western and anti-American rhetoric on the domestic scene but will cooperate sensibly with both the U.S. and the European Union in the world arena – not with open arms but quite rationally, as he did during his first two presidential terms.
How do you think the presidential election will play out next year? Will there be a second round? What do you think of the odds of newly registered candidates winning?
A second round is likely. If the election were held today, a second round would be inevitable. And this is a problem for Putin and his sense of self-sufficiency. It would be a heavy blow for him. National leaders aren’t made by winning in the second or third round.
As for the new candidates, I think the problem is that they have not yet drafted the basic provisions of their election platforms. Obviously, Prokhorov is appealing and can probably coral the protest sentiments in the country, but it would be good to know what kind of platform, foreign and social policies are supported by a likely Prokhorov voter. I don’t have any sense of this yet. Whether he is able to unite the protest movement will only become clear when he presents his platform.
As for the leaders nominated by the parties, the recent elections have shown their threshold of support. There are no new figures among the presidential nominees, and I think some of them would feel trapped in a second round with Putin and would do everything possible to lose it. On the whole, I wouldn’t worry much about the other nominees – they all know the rules of the game and wouldn’t dare violate them even under these circumstances.
So, there are several possible scenarios. They will become clear in mid January or in February when the presidential campaign reaches its peak. It will become clear which platforms generate interest and which do not.
