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The Medvedev riddle: a pawn or his own man?

The Rocky

Published February 29, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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On Sunday, the Russian people will go to the polls to elect as their president a young lawyer who has never held elected office and, until outgoing President Vladimir Putin named him his successor, most Russians had never heard of.

Dmitry Medvedev will win in a landslide. The Kremlin ensured that by barring from the election any credible opposition candidates, leaving three fringe candidates who seem to be on the ballot only so the election won't look totally rigged. One analyst called it less an election than a certification.

Putin, who is barred from a third consecutive term as president, will stay on as prime minister, on paper a much-less-powerful office.

The question being debated in Russia and abroad is how much of his own man Medvedev will be. In the month-long campaign, Medvedev has talked a good game - improving public health, better education and inducements for saving; and he echoed certain Putin themes like economic growth and fighting corruption.

But Medvedev has been a top aide to Putin since 1999, meaning he had to be instrumental in, if not an actual architect of, the Kremlin's tightening hold over Russian public life, the takeover of energy companies and the broadcast media, and the suppression of dissent.

Perhaps the Russian people's best hope is that Medvedev, having been handed the office, will feel that he should do something to earn it.

Comments

  • February 29, 2008

    11:42 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    jackwoehr writes:

    >>Perhaps the Russian people's best hope is that Medvedev,having been
    >>handed the office, will feel that he should do something to earn it.

    It would be nice if our own jacks and jills in office felt that way, too!

  • February 29, 2008

    9:26 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Sean writes:

    How can this be? George Bush looked Putin in the eye, the eye!, and saw a democratic leader. Actually it is not surprising of how wrong Bush judged Putin because Bush really cannot judge anything or do anything correctly. Less than a year before an adult enters the White House.

  • March 4, 2008

    12:56 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    T1anda writes:

    Putin TOLD the people to vote for Medveded OR lose their jobs!!! His state run media squelched out any and all other candidates (Kasporov for one) in the running! His old KGB days are long reaching now days, in the USSR!!

    Sounds familiar doesn't it??