DUST SETTLES ON PUTIN'S SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 004910

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/05/2017
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR KDEM RS
SUBJECT: DUST SETTLES ON PUTIN'S SURPRISE ANNOUNCEMENT

REF: MOSCOW 4833

Classified By: Ambassador William J. Burns. Reasons 1.4.(B/D).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) Putin's October 1 announcement that he will head the
pro-Kremlin United Russia (YR) party list (reftel) has been
portrayed by the opposing Kremlin party's Chairman Sergey
Mironov as proof that YR had gone into receivership, and had
to be bailed out by the President. In a meeting with the
Ambassador after the announcement, Duma Deputy Aleksandr
Lebedev seemed to take the news of Putin's potential
premiership in stride and guessed that unspecified assurances
by Putin had buoyed Mironov, whom he had seen before his
feisty October 4 press conference. The President's dramatic
decision seems to have generated little overt blowback here,
with most observers persuaded in advance that more of Putin
was either a well-deserved encore or an outcome to be
expected from a leader increasingly convinced that the
country cannot live without him. End summary.

Making Sense of
the Maneuvering
--------------


2. (C) Contacts with whom we have spoken in the days since
Putin's announcement were more self-assured in explaining the
events of October 1, less certain on what might happen next
in a political space that has had much of the information
sucked out of it. Mercator President Dmitriy Oreshkin summed
up the sentiments of many in guessing only that Putin would
remain in government in some capacity. Russia, he said, had
overnight become a country with an unpredictable present and
future, in addition to its traditionally unpredictable past.


3. (C) Putin's decision to temporarily ally himself with YR
was understood both as an effort to win a popular mandate
that he could point to in asserting, both to skeptics in
Russia and outside the country, that he had a kind of
democratic legitimacy. Were he to be simply appointed prime
minister, he could be seen as clinging to power. As the head
of a party that won 60 percent of the vote, he could claim a
mandate to rule. Oreshkin thought that electoral mathematics
had forced Putin's hand. He noted that YR had won less than
45 percent of the vote in the March regional elections, even
with strenuous efforts by regional elites, and Putin need a
constitutional majority in the new Duma, either to amend the
Constitution in order to shift power to the premiership, or
to create a power base for himself outside the government.


4. (C) The President's decision to head the party list, but
not join the party itself, allowed Putin to claim that he was
not part of the horsetrading that voters associate with party
life. It also maintained a fine, but important distinction
for traditional voters, who expected the President to preside
over the country but not be a part of it. Remaining above the
party allowed Putin to avoid accepting responsibility for the
party's track record when in office.


5. (C) All of the prerequisites for a seamless tradition from
Putin President to Putin Premier seem to be in place. He has
an aging and compliant Prime Minister who could become either
acting or elected President and is all but certain to win a
popular mandate in the Duma elections. Still, in the view of
some, their remains an element of uncertainty that argues for
Putin returning to the Kremlin, and that is the amount of
power wielded by the President. In a system so lacking in
stabilizing institutions that the Kremlin can see in Garry
Kasparov's Other Russia a potential Orange Revolution, it is
possible for Putin to suspect that his harmless friend Viktor
Zubkov, or the advisers who would materialize around him,
might not relinquish power once they have it.


6. (C) With Zubkov's appointment and Putin's announcement,
there is much speculation that the sun for now seems to be
setting on possible successors Sergey Ivanov and Dmitriy
Medvedev. Some observers suggest that they may find
themselves now scorned by their biggest booster --Putin--
because of their inability to make themselves into credible
candidates after near nightly visits to Russians' living
rooms. Clan ethics make it unlikely that either will be
ousted, at least immediately, and the sheer unpredictability
of the process does not exclude a comeback for either as the
succession scenario advances.

A Confident Putin
--------------


7. (C) Duma Deputy Aleksandr Lebedev told the Ambassador
October 3 that he had seen Putin about three weeks ago, and

MOSCOW 00004910 002 OF 002


found him "very confident." The President seemed at ease as
he teased Lebedev about his prickly relationship with Moscow
Mayor Luzhkov, and gave Lebedev the greenlight to continue to
complain about the way that the city is administered. Putin
animatedly discussed Lebedev's ideas for unsnarling Moscow's
traffic, and seemed very interested in legislation the Deputy
had proposed on plea bargaining and affordable housing.
Lebedev saw Putin's interest in these nuts-and-bolts issues
as evidence that a possible stint as prime minister was under
consideration.


8. (C) Lebedev claimed as well to have seen Mironov
immediately after the Just Russia Chairman's meeting with
Putin and before his October 4 press conference. Mironov was
very self-confident; Lebedev guessed he must have received
assurances from Putin. (Some of the media read significance,
however, into the fact that the meeting was given little
publicity by the Presidential Administration.) Lebedev
disagreed with Mironov's assertion that Just Russia, not the
Communist Party, would make it over the seven-percent barrier
to the Duma. The Communists were "disciplined, a real
party," Lebedev noted.


9. (C) Lebedev was complaisant about Putin's October 1
announcement, even alleging that he had expected it. His
unruffled reaction tracked with other conversations the
Ambassador has had this week, suggesting that the possibility
of a sharply negative reaction among the elites is unlikely.

Comment
--------------


10. (C) Although a month ago virtually no one would have
predicted that Putin would head United Russia's list and
Prime Minister Zubkov would be talking pension in Penza, the
calendar is a fixed variable, and with each successive day,
the possibilities for further such maneuvering are reduced,
and the outlines of the endgame should become clearer.
Burns