Thread by @samagreene

I'll say it: I may have been wrong about #Putin.

(An appropriately interminable #PutinForever thread)

/1

In case you've missed it, today's news is that a United Russia Duma Deputy (and first woman in space) proposed 'resetting' Putin's presidential terms, allowing him to run again. The Speaker of the Duma called Putin. Putin said ok. And that was that. meduza.io/en/feature/202…

/2

Within the space of about 20 minutes, one of the key planks of Putin's constitutional reform -- limiting the president to two terms -- evaporated.

/3

This is, frankly, flabbergasting. In an address broadcast even on the side of buildings across the country, Putin promised two key political reforms: Limiting the president to two terms only, and transferring power from the Kremlin to the Duma.

/4

Neither of those promises has made it into the final text (subject to a ruling of the Constitutional Court, but it's very had to imagine that going the other way).

/5

What Putin's reform gives us, then, is a strengthened presidency that Putin himself will now be allowed to occupy until 2036.

/6

Since this saga began, I had avoided making any predictions about whether Putin would stay, or whether he would go.

/7

I did and do believe that it is difficult for people in positions like his to leave power, not least because in deinstitutionalized autocracies power adheres to the person, not the office.

/8

But people try to do difficult things all the time, and it was never outside the realm of possibility that he did, in fact, want to leave. And perhaps he still does, though that's becoming harder to believe.

/9

Either way, Putin's inner desires and intentions are not observable data, and so we're left trying to interpret patterns of behavior -- both his own, and those around him.

/10

It was on that basis that I have argued that what Putin was trying to do with these reforms was to maximize maneuverability in the period from now to 2024, and ideally thereafter - and thus that the reforms were not meant to give us any certainty about the future.

/11

Putin is habitually on all sides of these sorts of issues -- or else on no visible side at all. He waits until the last moment to reveal his decision, not because he's some wily KGB agent who likes to play 3D chess, but because it makes sense.

/12

Once decisions are clear to the players in the game, they inevitably begin to calculate profits and losses, and those who end up on the losing side mobilize to overturn the decision. It's destabilizing and it gets in the way of achieving any other policy goals he might have.

/13

And so I assumed that he would stick to form and keep people guessing. And that's what he did -- at least for a few weeks.

/14

Talking about the Duma, strengthening the presidency, playing up the State Council - he got people looking in multiple directions at once, wondering where he would go, and where they would end up.

/15

But then he started talking. First he said that he wouldn't seek another term. Then he said that he wouldn't seek to run the State Council, because that would cause a duplication of power. novayagazeta.ru/news/2020/03/0…

/16

And in 👏the 👏same 👏interview 👏 he said that while rotation of power was important, stability was more important. interfax.ru/russia/698097

/17

At first, I thought this was more of the same obfuscation. And yet it was oddly all pointing in one direction: the impossibility of any scenario other than the one we seem to see playing out today.

/18

Why impossibility? Because Russia's system of power rests on the ability of the person in Putin's role to command the trust both of the people and the elite. Wherever Putin goes after the Kremlin, that trust will follow up, rather than shifting to the new occupant.

/19

As a result, unless Putin makes himself physically unavailable, power (at least initially) will follow him into whatever position he takes. And yet under the new constitution, whatever position he did take would be vulnerable to the president.

/20

In other words, Russia would end up with a collision between Putin's informal power and the new president's formal power - exactly the двоевластие that Putin was talking about in his interview. And he's right that it would be destabilizing.

/21

So why pull the band-aid off the wound now? Maybe the uncertainty was creating more jitters than he'd planned for - especially against the backdrop of Covid-19 and the end of OPEC+.

Or maybe I was just wrong all along.

/22

It is, of course, possible that all this is still just a game. Maybe the Constitutional Court will reject it. (Ha!) Maybe the people will reject it. (Ha ha!) Maybe Putin is just giving himself the option and won't actually use it. (Ha ha huh?)

/23

Either way, prior to today the smart money would have stayed away from betting on the Russian presidency post-2024. Now, I think, that calculation has to shift. It's possible that Putin won't stick around. But it's increasingly likely he will.

/24

So, what does that mean for Russian politics? On the surface, not much: We knew Putin was likely to remain important. Now we know (more or less) how.

/25

But by taking the presidency even more fully out of the electoral realm -- how do you challenge a man who effectively has a constitutional mandate to rule for life? -- it puts increasing pressure on the flagging fortunes of United Russia.

/26

With Duma elections approaching - and regional elections around the country on a regular basis - the Kremlin needs the ruling party to get it together, and quick.

/27

Reviving United Russia is a matter not just of achieving results, but of getting electoral credit for them - something Russian voters are often loathe to give. And because Putin is staying in the game, much of that credit will flow to him.

/28

As a result, we can expect the opposition to press hard - and the state to push back. More, then, of what we saw in Moscow last summer. fidh.org/IMG/pdf/russie…

/29

If anything, though, today's move raises the stakes. Social mobilization is often most powerful when it includes a sense of 'now or never' - that if you don't act now, the future will be lost for a generation or more.

/30

That was part of what launched the Bolotnaia protests in 2011, but it was even more powerfully what prevented Kuchma from installing Yanukovych, and then Yanukovych from pulling back from the EU Association Agreement.

/31

'Now or never' was important in bringing down Milosevic and Shevardnadze and Mubarak. All of these 'revolutions' and others were sparked when leaders' quest for 'stability' gave the streets a sense of urgency.

/32

It perhaps makes sense then for Putin to make this announcement now, when the elections are still four years off. People are unlikely to protest in large numbers over something that may or may not happen. And by the time 2024 rolls around, people may be inured to the idea.

/33

And yet this still puts a big target on Putin's back, which he will have to carry on behalf of the whole political system. Just as Putin's beneficiaries in the elite now know they can rely on patronage, Putin's detractors in the opposition know what they're pushing against.

/34

That kind of certainty - on both sides - is something I though Putin would have wanted to avoid. And maybe he still does. But the benefits of that kind of maneuverability were clearly found to be less than the benefits of telegraphing his continued presidential ambitions.

/END?