Minchenko Politburo 2.0 on the eve of the reboot of elite groups. Putin will renew the composition of his Politburo. On the eve of the reboot of the elite groups

January 2013

The communication holding "Minchenko Consulting" presents a continuation of the study "Vladimir Putin's Big Government and Politburo 2.0". The report is of interest to regional elites, Russian business and foreign investors.

Part 1. The dynamics of elite groups within the Politburo 2.0

In the previous report, we proposed the concept of the ruling elite of Russia as a specific analogue of the Soviet collective power body - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which aims to maintain the existing inter-clan balance. In our analysis, we proceed from the fact that the Russian government is a conglomeration of clans and groups that compete with each other for resources. And the role of Vladimir Putin in this system remains unchanged - it is the role of an arbitrator and moderator, but an influential arbitrator, whose word in conflict situations, at least for now, remains decisive.

The formation around Vladimir Putin of the Big Government (which includes the government itself and the Presidential Administration), with duplicating functionality and a composition heterogeneous in professionalism and clan representation, led, on the one hand, to an increase in the influence of the president personally, but, on the other hand, to a slowdown in the adoption of strategic decisions and reduce their quality.

At the same time, the government of Dmitry Medvedev was the main object of criticism from business, political elites, and the president himself, and the intensity of the change of ministers in the first few months of the cabinet was unprecedented.

At the same time, it should be noted that the stalling of the government's work was associated, among other things, with a number of objective reasons. Among them:

Decisions that were made quickly and without public and expert discussion have already begun to fail at the implementation stage. For example, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov said he did not know how to administer the Law on Foreign Agents. The decision taken in conjunction with the budget to increase pension payments for workers in hazardous industries has sharply increased the fiscal burden on businesses and a number of budget organizations (while the explanatory note to the law noted that no additional federal budget expenditures would be required).

However the ruling coalition succeeded on the whole in solving the tactical tasks that it set for itself:

Using the rhetoric of an external threat, power structures and anti-corruption campaign to solve domestic political problems has led to serious progress within the Politburo 2.0. The security forces corporation has significantly strengthened its position within the Politburo 2.0. The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, returned to the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo. The new head of the Ministry of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, has acquired the status of a full member of the Politburo 2.0. The heads of power ministries and departments, which previously belonged to the orbits of influence of the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, continue to distance themselves from their former patrons.

The role of the judiciary has grown as one of the tools for building an intra-elite balance, which was expressed in the entry into the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0. heads of the Supreme Court Vladimir Lebedev and the Supreme Arbitration Court Anton Ivanov.

In the same time decline in the ratings of the president and prime minister(truth, stopped recently) forms a request for the emergence of new figures in power - "image locomotives". This is also why the intra-elite shares of Sergei Shoigu, who is practically the only federal politician who has recently shown an increase in the trust rating among the population, soared sharply. Also, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin are trying to claim the role of charismatics with varying degrees of success.

Relative success " United Russia» at regional and municipal elections in the autumn of 2012 was achieved in the conditions of active use of administrative resources and a relatively low turnout. Therefore, the influence of figures with their own political projects and additional instruments of political influence is growing (head of Russian Technologies Sergey Chemezov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vyacheslav Volodin, head of VTB Andrey Kostin, presidential plenipotentiary in the Central Federal District Alexander Beglov).

The formation of an intra-elite coalition (Sergey Chemezov, Sergey Ivanov, Dmitry Rogozin, Igor Shuvalov), which achieved the resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (naturally, who left the Politburo 2.0 as a result), took place with the active participation of Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO Gazprom, who returned thus in the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0.

It is worth noting low influence of the governor's corps on the political agenda. In the regional bloc, only two of the current heads of regions, the heads of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, were included in the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0. The position of the governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy Poltavchenko, has deteriorated, turning into a “lame duck” before our eyes. In the same time Today, three plenipotentiaries of the President can claim the role of regional heavyweights in federal districts- Alexander Khloponin, Victor Ishaev and Alexander Beglov. Two of them are former governors, who also have the status of members of the Government (as vice-premiers and ministers, respectively). As for Beglov, he skillfully uses the apparatus influence that has been preserved from the time of his work as the chief personnel officer of the Kremlin.

Yury Trutnev became a new candidate for Politburo 2.0 membership in the technical bloc, who very quickly found himself a new niche in the State Council as a moderator of regional disagreements.

The legislative fever of the fall session of 2012 forced us to reconsider the functional roles of some of the candidates in Politburo 2.0. Thus, the heads of both chambers of parliament were moved to the “new Secretariat of the Central Committee”, while the deputy heads of the Presidential Administration Alexei Gromov and Dmitry Peskov showed themselves not as performers, but rather as ideologists, therefore they were moved to the Political bloc of candidates for members of the Politburo 2.0. The most important function representatives of this bloc is to work out alternative methods of governance, including ideological ones, without changing the foundations of the existing political system.

There was one change in the number of candidates for Politburo 2.0 from business. Andrey Kostin was included in the list to ensure the presence of representatives of all four systemically important banks: Sberbank, VEB, VTB and Rosselkhozbank. It is worth noting that VEB Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev is not included in the list of candidates, since the activities of this bank are supervised personally by Vladimir Putin through First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. Rosselkhozbank is headed by Dmitry Patrushev - the son of a candidate member of the Politburo 2.0 from the legal-power bloc N. Patrushev.

Otherwise, the business block of the Politburo 2.0 demonstrates stability. Significant redistribution of property is not planned, the place of criminal showdowns was taken by high London courts dealing with offshore assets. Moreover, the settlement of the conflict around Norilsk Nickel showed that it is possible to reach a compromise not only in the course of a foreign litigation. After the departure of Vladimir Strzhalkovsky as head of the company, a strategic bloc of three big businessmen from the 1990s emerges: Vladimir Potanin, Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich. It is also important that a large-scale privatization program has fallen out of the top priority, and the political rhetoric of returning assets withdrawn from Russia remains rhetoric. The state is only increasing its assets, as happened in the deal to buy TNK-BP. As a result of the deal with Rosneft, Alfa Group and Viktor Vekselberg received impressive free funds, which creates additional room for them to maneuver.

Assessing the resource potential of full members of the Politburo 2.0 (see Table 4), it is important to note the following:

Over the coming year the conflicts already mentioned in the previous report will remain on the agenda of intra-elite struggle:

high the likelihood of a new attack on the leadership of Gazprom in order to reorganize the company. The positions of Alexei Miller have recently weakened due to the shale revolution threatening the positions of the “national treasure” and the partial loss of markets for Russian gas. Therefore, the idea of ​​restructuring Gazprom, which is now being actively promoted by the head of Sberbank German Gref, can be revived (for example, in the format of separating the transport component and creating 5-6 mining companies that can be distributed among the main elite groups).

The actualization of objective contradictions between the Ministry of Defense and manufacturers of military products is also inevitable. Their sharpness will largely depend on political alignments and coalitions.

In addition, the new hardware voltage points should be noted:

An attempt to remove these conflicts within the framework of the Big Government is the practice of regular reports of ministers to the president on the progress in the implementation of his decrees. During the year, a reorganization of the Cabinet of Ministers is not ruled out, during which a number of former Putin ministers may return to the government as deputy prime ministers.

Evgeny Minchenko, President of the communication holding "Minchenko consulting", with the participation Kirill Petrov, head of the analytical department of Minchenko consulting.

1 1 POLITBURO 2.0 REPORT ON THE EVE OF THE RESET OF ELITE GROUPS January February 2013 Minchenko Consulting Communications Holding presents a continuation of the study “Vladimir Putin's Big Government and Politburo 2.0” 1. The report is of interest to regional elites, Russian business and foreign investors. Part 1. The dynamics of elite groups within the Politburo 2.0 In the previous report, the concept of the ruling elite of Russia was proposed as a specific analogue of the Soviet collective power body - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which aims to maintain the existing inter-clan balance. In our analysis, we proceed from the fact that the Russian government is a conglomeration of clans and groups that compete with each other for resources. And the role of Vladimir Putin in this system remains unchanged - it is the role of an arbiter and moderator, but an influential arbiter, whose word in conflict situations, at least for now, remains decisive. The formation around V. Putin of the Big Government (which includes the government itself, the Presidential Administration and the Security Council), with duplicate functionality and a heterogeneous composition in terms of professionalism and clan representation, led, on the one hand, to an increase in the influence of the president personally, but, on the other hand, to slow down the adoption of strategic decisions and reduce their quality. At the same time, the government of Dmitry Medvedev was the main object of criticism from business, political elites and from the president himself, and the intensity of the change of ministers in the first few months of the cabinet was unprecedented. At the same time, it should be noted that the stalling of the government's work was associated, among other things, with a number of objective reasons. Among them: - the inconsistency of the president's election promises. In particular, it is difficult to combine the tasks of creating 25 million new high-performance jobs and a gradual increase in the wages of public sector workers up to 200% of the regional average. The delay in the preparation of the concept of pension reform criticized by the president is connected, among other things, with the fact that there are difficulties in coordinating budget indications and the given parameters for increasing pensions; one

2 2 - development "from the wheels" of the political strategy of the authorities in relation to the protest groups of the public. Only by the time the president's address to the Federal Assembly was announced, did this strategy finally take shape (ignoring and marginalizing the liberal part of the protest, integrating part of the nationalist rhetoric into the official rhetoric of the authorities, and increasing social benefits to attract socially motivated protesters to their side); - leveling the role of parliament and its transfer to the regime of the department for the approval of decisions of the executive branch. Decisions that were made quickly and without public and expert discussion have already begun to fail at the implementation stage. For example, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov said he did not know how to administer the Law on Foreign Agents. The decision taken in conjunction with the budget to increase pension payments for workers in hazardous industries has sharply increased the fiscal burden on businesses and a number of budget organizations (while the explanatory note to the law noted that no additional federal budget expenditures would be required). However, the ruling coalition succeeded on the whole in solving the tactical tasks that it set for itself: - to keep the political protest within manageable limits; - to ensure acceptable performance of the "party of power" in the regional elections of October 2012; - reduce the potential for external influence on the Russian elite (apparently, the promotion of the anti-tobacco law was also based on the same logic, since it was the lobby of tobacco TNCs that until recently was the most influential foreign lobby in Russian authorities). The use of the rhetoric of an external threat, law enforcement agencies and the anti-corruption campaign to solve domestic political problems has led to serious progress within the Politburo 2.0. The security forces corporation has significantly strengthened its position within the Politburo 2.0. The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, returned to the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo. The new head of the Ministry of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, has acquired the status of a full member of the Politburo 2.0. The heads of power ministries and departments, which previously belonged to the orbits of influence of the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, continue to distance themselves from their former patrons. The role of the judiciary has grown as one of the tools for building an intra-elite balance, which was reflected in the entry into the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0. heads of the Supreme Court Vladimir Lebedev and the Supreme Arbitration Court Anton Ivanov. At the same time, the decline in the ratings of the president and the prime minister (although it has stopped recently) creates a demand for the emergence of new figures of “image locomotives” in power. This is also why the intra-elite actions of S. Shoigu, who is practically the only federal politician who has recently shown an increase in the trust rating among the population, soared sharply. Also, the mayor is trying to claim the role of charismatics with varying success.

3 3 Moscow Sergey Sobyanin, Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin. The relative success of United Russia in the regional and municipal elections in autumn 2012 was achieved in the conditions of active use of administrative resources and a relatively low turnout. Therefore, the influence of figures with their own political projects and additional instruments of political influence is growing (head of Russian Technologies Sergey Chemezov, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vyacheslav Volodin, head of VTB Andrey Kostin, presidential plenipotentiary in the Central Federal District Alexander Beglov). The formation of an intra-elite coalition (Sergey Chemezov, Sergey Ivanov, Dmitry Rogozin, Igor Shuvalov), which achieved the resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (naturally, who left the Politburo 2.0 as a result), took place with the active participation of Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO Gazprom, who returned thus in the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0. It is worth noting the low influence of the governor's corps on the political agenda. In the regional bloc, only two of the current heads of the regions, heads of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov, were included in the number of candidates for members of the Politburo 2.0. The position of the governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy Poltavchenko, has deteriorated, turning into a “lame duck” before our eyes. At the same time, Alexander Khloponin, Viktor Ishaev and Alexander Beglov, three plenipotentiaries of the president in the federal districts, can claim the role of regional heavyweights today. Two of them are former governors, who at the same time have the status of members of the Government (as vice-premiers and ministers, respectively). As for Beglov, he skillfully uses the apparatus influence that has been preserved from the time of his work as the chief personnel officer of the Kremlin. Yury Trutnev became a new candidate for Politburo 2.0 membership in the technical bloc, who very quickly found himself a new niche in the State Council as a moderator of regional disagreements. The legislative fever of the fall session of 2012 forced us to reconsider the functional roles of some of the candidates in Politburo 2.0. Thus, the heads of both chambers of parliament were moved to the "new Secretariat of the Central Committee", while the deputy heads of the Presidential Administration Alexei Gromov and Dmitry Peskov showed themselves not as performers, but rather as ideologists, therefore they were moved to the Political bloc of candidates for members of the Politburo 2.0. The most important function of the representatives of this bloc is to work out alternative ways of governing, including ideological ones, without changing the foundations of the existing political system. There was one change in the number of candidates for Politburo 2.0 from business. Andrey Kostin was included in the list to ensure the presence of representatives of all four systemically important banks: Sberbank, VEB, VTB and Rosselkhozbank. It should be noted that VEB Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev is not included in the list of candidates, since the activities of this bank are personally supervised by V. Putin through

4 4 First Deputy Prime Minister I. Shuvalov. Rosselkhozbank is headed by Dmitry Patrushev - the son of a candidate member of the Politburo 2.0 from the legal-power bloc N. Patrushev. Otherwise, the business block of the Politburo 2.0 demonstrates stability. Significant redistribution of property is not planned, the place of criminal showdowns was taken by high London courts dealing with offshore assets. Moreover, the settlement of the conflict around Norilsk Nickel showed that it is possible to reach a compromise not only in the course of a foreign lawsuit. After the departure of Vladimir Strzhalkovsky as head of the company, a strategic bloc of three big businessmen from the 1990s emerges: Vladimir Potanin, Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich. It is also important that a large-scale privatization program has fallen out of the top priority, and the political rhetoric of returning assets withdrawn from Russia remains rhetoric. The state is only increasing its assets, as happened in the deal to buy TNK-BP. As a result of the deal with Rosneft, Alfa Group and Viktor Vekselberg received impressive free funds, which creates additional room for them to maneuver. Assessing the resource potential of full-fledged members of the Politburo 2.0 (see the appendix to this report), it is important to note the following: - Prime Minister and nominal leader of United Russia D. Medvedev, while maintaining the first place in terms of resources, after the departure of A. Serdyukov, lost part of his influence on security officials, and as a result of vague image positioning, worsened its rating indicators; - The tandem of the head of the Presidential Administration S. Ivanov and the head of Russian Technologies S. Chemezov is on the rise, having increased its influence on the administrative apparatus and law enforcement agencies; - As a result of the success in the October elections and the gradual fading of the protest activity, V. Volodin, who is involved in the political management of the Kremlin, also strengthened his positions; - A newcomer to the Politburo 2.0, S. Shoigu, demonstrates an impressive increase in the rating both among the population and among elite groups, especially regional ones. However, with the current image, his rating growth has a ceiling of 2. According to some military experts, he has already made a number of mistakes as head of the Ministry of Defense ("stepping on the same rake as A. Serdyukov"). In addition, the administrative influence of S. Shoigu in his previous fiefdoms (the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Moscow Region) is limited by the rather high independence of successors. In particular, the personnel policy of the acting Governor of the Moscow Region Andrei Vorobyov says that today he is in the orbit of influence of G. Timchenko; - The tandem of businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Yuri Kovalchuk maintains a stable position in V. Putin's entourage. Nevertheless, the situational reconciliation of G. Timchenko and I. Sechin is unlikely to last long, given the systemic nature of the contradictions of the companies they head; 2 For more details, see the second part of this report

5 5 - Moscow Mayor S. Sobyanin, despite a number of unpopular decisions made by him, continues to be among the candidates for successors and prime ministers. However, the growth of his influence is limited by the unsuccessful start of his team members Viktor Basargin and Evgeny Kuyvashev as governors in the Perm Territory and the Sverdlovsk Region; - The situational decrease in the influence of the head of Rosneft I. Sechin is associated with a change in his status, which entails a decrease in administrative and power resources, as well as with a large number of conflicts within the industry in which he is involved. Over the next year, the conflicts already mentioned in the previous report will remain on the agenda of the intra-elite struggle: - Apparatus competition for control over the fuel and energy complex between the secretary of the relevant presidential commission I. Sechin and the relevant deputy prime minister A. Dvorkovich (and the coalition of nomenklatura and business groups that joined him ); - Competition around the "big privatization" program; - The tension between the leadership of Moscow and the Moscow region and the correction of the contours of the project "Greater Moscow", which will be aggravated by the elections of the governor of the Moscow region in the fall of 2013 and the Moscow City Duma in the fall Moscow in the chair of the Prime Minister; - The struggle of the security forces around the creation of a single Investigative Committee. Since the result for competing groups is not obvious, and the influence of almost all law enforcement agencies has recently grown, there are fewer enthusiasts for this idea. In a number of recent high-profile cases, the FSB used its own investigation, without resorting to the support of the TFR; - The struggle around the restart of the project "Corporation for the Development of Siberia and the Far East." There is a high probability of a new attack on the leadership of Gazprom in order to reorganize the company. The positions of Alexei Miller have recently weakened due to the shale revolution threatening the positions of the “national treasure” and the partial loss of markets for Russian gas. Therefore, the idea of ​​restructuring Gazprom, which is now being actively promoted by the head of Sberbank German Gref, can be revived (for example, in the format of separating the transport component and creating 5-6 mining companies that can be distributed among the main elite groups). The actualization of objective contradictions between the Ministry of Defense and manufacturers of military products is also inevitable. Their sharpness will largely depend on political alignments and coalitions. In addition, new hardware points of tension should be noted: - between ministers and ex-ministers who have moved to the posts of assistants to the president (most noticeable in the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Science); - between the government apparatus and presidential aide Elvira Nabiullina.

6 6 An attempt to resolve these conflicts within the framework of the Big Government is the practice of regular reports of ministers to the president on the progress in the implementation of his decrees. During the year, a reorganization of the Cabinet of Ministers is not ruled out, during which a number of former Putin ministers may return to the government as deputy prime ministers.

7 7 Part 2. Drivers of the Reset and Scenarios for the Development of the Political Situation The dynamics inside the Politburo 2.0 over the past six months (from August 2012 to January 2013), described in the first part of the report, demonstrates a fairly high stability of the composition of the upper stratum of the elite Russian Federation. However, in our opinion, a combination of internal and external factors will force Russian President Vladimir Putin and his colleagues in the Politburo 2.0 to reload the elite, which is expressed in changing both its personal composition and the mechanisms for recruiting new members of the ruling coalition. This reset will not be the result of the strategic plan of the authorities as a whole or V. Putin personally, but the result of a combination of tactical moves, which, in turn, will be a reaction to the internal and external challenges facing the regime. Intra-elite risks that act as drivers of change: - Decreased controllability and speed of decision-making within the cumbersome system of the Big Government (which includes the Government of the Russian Federation itself, the Presidential Administration and the Security Council of the Russian Federation); - the collapse of the "Medvedev coalition" of the sample years. The search by its participants (liberal and family group, part of the apparatus) for ways of political survival of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a presidential candidate in 2018 or an alternative successor figure (variants of Sergei Shoigu, Alexei Kudrin, Mikhail Prokhorov); - erosion of the existing party-political system and the need to update it; - the struggle of elite groups for the place of prime minister as an "automatic successor" in the event of some tragic accident with V. Putin. At the same time, the dominant mood in the top of the elite is the readiness to extend the presidential mandate of V. Putin in 2018. However, all political players, including the president himself, are also working on alternative political scenarios, which means they are creating additional footholds for themselves, including in the political field. Inside the Politburo 2.0, the struggle will unfold not only for rent resources and administrative positions. Competing elite groups will find it important to show V. Putin their personnel potential and successful political projects. Contradictions at the federal level will inevitably be projected onto the level of the regions and will be expressed in the confrontation of various nomenklatura groups in the elections of governors and legislative assemblies, in the largest municipalities, as well as in the current political life regions. The sharpness of this competition will be exacerbated by the following factors: - the dissatisfaction of most of the regional elites with the budgetary policy of the federal center in the absence of leverage for changing it; - the continuing low quality of governance in the regions and the low level of electoral support for a significant part of the incumbent governors.

8 8 The wider the practice of abandoning the procedure for direct elections of heads of regions and the more regulated the process of holding elections, the more this problem will worsen; - contradictions between the elites of national republics and other regions; - the lack of clear rules of the game on the part of the federal center regarding political reform and gubernatorial elections, disorienting the regional elites. If we talk about the risks of the authorities losing public support, then, in our opinion, the line chosen by the Kremlin as a tactical response to the protests of the years has its limitations: , located on the periphery of the real problematic field of the population, cannot be long; - the direction and content of any forced and unpopular structural reforms (education, healthcare, pension system, army, housing and communal services, etc.) can only be liberal; - the line on the formation of an “alternative middle class” based on the regional budget intelligentsia will run into a deficit financial resources and will generate negative effects for the economy (the level of salaries of public sector employees not lower than the average for the region will reduce the motivation of workers in the real sector); - promotion of social populism and situational stimulation of certain categories of the population will lead to spinning up the flywheel of expectations with a real increase in the cost of living due to an increase in tariffs for housing and communal services and energy carriers; - the use of the rhetoric of nationalists without real steps in this direction, on the one hand, will shake the nationalist agenda, and on the other hand, will create a steady disappointment in the authorities among this segment of the electorate; - anti-Atlanticism as the basis of foreign policy rhetoric (separation of the topics of a potential military threat and political pressure from NATO and the need for economic cooperation with European countries) will be ineffective, since contradictions with the West have generally acquired a value character and are not overcome through economic bargaining. It seems that the effectiveness of this model will be exhausted within a few years, which will require a transition to a new policy. From the point of view of the external situation, the following risks should be noted: - Changes in energy prices and the level of competition in important markets for the Russian Federation (primarily in Europe). At the same time, the most alarming event, officially recognized for the first time Russian officials only in 2013, is the so-called shale revolution, in the future, seriously reducing the EU's dependence on Russian oil and gas. In addition, in the potential, it is cooperation in the development of shale gas and oil fields in China that can become the basis for a strategic partnership between the United States (as a carrier of technologies) and China (as

9 9 of the owner of the reserves). Such cooperation within the framework of the "Big Two" can create serious problems for Russia's geopolitical stability, which was largely based on the use of contradictions between these two players; - high probability of a new wave of the global economic crisis Negative influence on the Russian financial sector and reducing demand for Russian goods; - a negative trend in the attitude of the EU countries towards Russia, based on a conflict of values, and therefore difficult to overcome; - the growth of instability in the region of the Expanded Middle East, Afpak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) and Greater Central Asia, the intensification of the expansion of radical Islamists in the post-Soviet countries; - the possibility of a change of power in the countries of Central Asia. Moreover, the most problematic countries for Russia are Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which are ruled by age leaders and where there is no clear model for the transit of power. With a high degree of probability, any successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev will be much less oriented towards integration processes with Russia. In Uzbekistan, the struggle for successor status could lead to armed clashes, which, in turn, could provoke a flow of refugees from the region towards the Russian Federation. It is also important to take into account the key events of the foreign policy calendar: - Presidential elections in Georgia (autumn 2013). The victory of the opposition in the parliamentary elections in Georgia in 2012 led to a serious thaw in Russian-Georgian relations 3. The continuation of this trend will stimulate the Russian authorities to pursue a more active policy in the post-Soviet space; - hosting two high-level sports events in Russia - the Winter Olympics in Sochi (2014) and the World Cup (2018). Given the high image significance of these events for V. Putin personally, it can be assumed that the Russian leadership will avoid both an excessive increase in anti-Western rhetoric and sudden movements within the country until the end of the Olympics, and then on the eve of the football championship; - the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan (2014), which, on the one hand, will increase the pressure of the Islamists on the countries of Central Asia, and on the other hand, significantly increase the military potential of Uzbekistan, which does not want to put up with the development of hydroelectric power in neighboring Tajikistan, due to the transfer of weapons withdrawn from Afghanistan to the Uzbek authorities and Kyrgyzstan, which Russia is actively helping in industrial construction and which are contenders for joining the Eurasian integration circuit. However, judging by the latest statements, 3 I strengthened the position within the Politburo 2.0 of the curator of this direction, the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov.

10 10 American officials, in one form or another, the US military presence in Afghanistan will be maintained (for example, as advisers); - possible creation Eurasian Union (2015). Despite the active development of the Customs Union project, further integration may be problematic. Having already received serious preferences for their economies, Alexander Lukashenko and Nursultan Nazarbayev may refuse or start delaying further integration, as they consider the risks for their personal power system too high. At least the transfer decision Kazakh language N. Nazarbayev's rhetoric about the Russian occupation demonstrates at least the fact that the Kazakh president is also considering other options for foreign policy orientation. In our opinion, it is the Kazakh side that can become the initiator of delaying the process of further integration; - presidential elections in Ukraine (2015). There are no influential pro-Russian political forces in Ukraine today and their appearance within two years seems unlikely, and the main political players are the oligarchic clans (with the increasingly noticeable dominance of the "family" of Viktor Yanukovych), who consider the country as their fiefdom, and Russian business in as a competitor. Therefore, any outcome of the elections will most likely contribute to distancing Ukraine from Russia: in the event of the victory of V. Yanukovych, who will begin to drift towards Western Ukraine, similar to the one made by L. Kuchma, and in the event of the victory of one of his opponents. Such a development of events will deal a tangible blow to Moscow's foreign policy prestige, but to prevent it, it will be necessary to spend unprecedented amounts of resources; - The US presidential elections (2016) for the first time in this century will be spaced apart in time with the Russian presidential elections, although they will coincide with the Duma elections (if they are held on time). And this means that the attention of the American authorities to the Russian presidential elections in 2018 will be much closer than usual, and the new president, who at this moment will not be a lame duck, but will be concerned about the need to strengthen the position of his party in the midterm elections in Congress, will be tempted to use the theme of the struggle for democracy in Russia for internal political mobilization (in the United States, unfortunately, due to historical reasons, there are no active pro-Russian groups of voters). V. Putin's political strategy will be based on several dominants: - maintaining the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation (which is perceived by V. Putin as his personal mission);

11 11 - ensuring within the Politburo 2.0 such a balance of power that would allow him to obtain from the elite any solution of the 2018 problem that is beneficial to him, including both his own nomination and the nomination of any successor, including D. Medvedev; - maintaining a high level of personal popularity among the population; - reducing the possibility of external influence on the behavior of the Russian elite; - maintaining a place in the club of leading world leaders and maintaining Russia's geopolitical influence through control of energy flows and strengthening the zone of influence in the post-Soviet space. To solve these problems, V. Putin will use a set of political technologies, which he repeatedly resorted to throughout his time in power. We can say that, contrary to the persistent idea of ​​V. Putin's unpredictability, he regularly reproduces the same patterns: - "An early victory." This technology became the instrument of his coming to power in 1999, when the election of V. Putin as president became practically uncontested after his appointment as prime minister, the victory in the parliamentary elections and the early resignation of Boris Yeltsin, which changed the timing of the presidential elections. Then the early victory pattern was reproduced during the electoral cycles of the years. (the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which knocked out the economic base of the opposition and demoralized the liberal part of the elites and the electorate, the early resignation of Mikhail Kasyanov's cabinet), gg. (Viktor Zubkov's interim cabinet, campaign for elections to the State Duma at the head of the United Russia list in parallel with the appointment of a successor, securing the post of prime minister in advance and securing control over the constitutional majority in parliament), years. (September castling). In this regard, it can be assumed that the fate of the presidential elections in 2018 will be decided in advance in the years; - Alignment of elites. Putin is careful to ensure that no group gains undue influence. One can recall how in 2006 there were a number of resignations designed to weaken the group of Igor Sechin (resignation of the Prosecutor General of Vladimir Ustinov, resignations of a number of senior officials in the FSB and top managers in the fuel and energy complex), however, despite this, I. Sechin retained position as one of the president's most trusted people. Therefore, the process of weakening D. Medvedev's group, which began with the resignations of his creatures in law enforcement agencies and continued with the image losses of the prime minister due to the cancellation of a number of his initiatives and the attack on the positions of business structures oriented towards him, will be stopped at the moment when V. Putin will consider that the potential of this group has been reduced to a level that ensures an inter-elite balance. When intra-elite conflicts arise, the incumbent president tends to deliver symmetrical blows to both poles of the conflict (perhaps the recent

12 12 the departure from the post of Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Fedorov, oriented towards I. Sechin, should symmetrically compensate for the weakening of D. Medvedev's group); - "Rejection of fellow travelers." V. Putin's personnel strategy is a gradual and stage-by-stage replacement of fellow travelers with people who owe their rise only to him. The president's team has historically been formed from several sources - colleagues from the St. to the team of B. Yeltsin's successor "Moscow St. Petersburg". Having come to power as a candidate from a broad elite coalition that included B. Yeltsin's "family", part of the oligarchs, "systemic liberals", the leadership of natural monopolies and part of the regional elites, V. Putin expanded this coalition at the expense of those regionals who in the years . were in opposition to B. Yeltsin. This allowed him to seamlessly put natural monopolies under his control, and then limit the influence of the oligarchs on politics. Followed in the years. the departure of representatives of the family group from the key posts of the head of the presidential administration and the prime minister marked the beginning of the existence of Putin's Politburo 2.0. During the years there is a new influx of figures from Putin’s past into power structures, power structures and key positions in business (fellow students from Leningrad State University, friends in judo, colleagues from the KGB, friends from the Ozero cooperative), as well as their children for second positions in government agencies and business . At the same time, a new personnel source appears - people from the regions who owe their elevation personally to V. Putin (in particular, Sergei Sobyanin, Yuri Trutnev). The expansion of the personnel bench allowed V. Putin during the presidency of D. Medvedev and his hands to clean up the regional heavyweights. At the moment, at risk are "systemic liberals" and that part of the family group that played in the "D. Medvedev's second term" project, and when this project did not take place, expressed their dissatisfaction by sponsoring mass protests. The usefulness of this group as a communicator with Western elites for V. Putin is doubtful, because, firstly, despite the efforts of systemic liberals, in last years relations with the West only worsened, and secondly, he had alternative communicators - A. Kudrin on macroeconomic issues and I. Sechin on specific projects in the energy sector. Also at risk are the governors of the "Medvedev call" (not because they can be suspected of loyalty to D. Medvedev, but because their appointments were a product of the elite alignment of that time); - "Endless testing of successors." An example of a succession race and its completion in 2011 (when it became clear that D. Medvedev never became a real successor) showed that it is psychologically difficult for V. Putin to make a decision on a real transfer of power. The competition of potential successors for the favor of the country's main elector turned out to be an effective technique for managing the elite, but the president's attitude

13 13 to this process is quite Bernsteinian: "The movement is everything, the goal is nothing." Therefore, in our opinion, a new race of successors has actually begun today 4, and new participants will enter it over the course of several years. In particular, governors who successfully passed through the elections, for example, the one who will replace Georgy Poltavchenko as governor of St. Petersburg, can compete for this role. If the processes of unification of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region are launched, as well as the merger of the oil and gas “matryoshkas” and the south of the Tyumen region into a single entity, the heads of these regions, due to their economic importance and constant communication with key elite players, will also automatically fall into the short list. The competition of successors within the elite will be encouraged by V. Putin (let them compete better with each other than with the president), but only until the moment when the confrontation begins to acquire a confrontational character that threatens the image of power as a whole; - "Force response to the threat from the South." Coming to power in 1999 on the wave of opposition to the armed aggression of the Wahhabis, and then supporting the US military operation in Afghanistan as a joint response to the events of September 11, 2001, created a stable pattern for Putin to justify his own legitimacy through the role of defender of Russia and, more broadly, Western civilization from aggression by radical extremists. The response to the terrorist attack in 2004 was the abolition of gubernatorial elections. The war with Georgia in 2008 seriously strengthened the positions of the tandem within the country, and then in the external arena. The potential risks of conflicts and terrorist attacks associated with Central Asia and the Caucasus are perceived by V. Putin and his team as familiar challenges that can be used to increase both internal and external legitimacy. Inside the power coalition and inside the Politburo 2.0, two poles are situationally formed. On one of them, players are grouped who are striving to preserve elements of tandemocracy, and not necessarily keeping the functions of the duumvir for D. Medvedev. At the second pole, a coalition has formed, whose spokesman is I. Sechin, and main goal the longest possible retention by V. Putin of sole political dominance, and, consequently, the final dismantling of the consequences of the existence of a tandem. While D. Medvedev remains the second person in the state and the automatic successor of V. Putin in an emergency situation, the remnants of tandemocracy remain, which means that his group will be able to prevent the influence of clans oriented towards I. Sechin from becoming too strong. And the same way in the opposite direction. The main problem of D. Medvedev's political behavior today is that he is trying to play the role of an alternative political pole and a figure with a specific political identity, different from V. Putin. At the same time, it is not an "assembly point" for new elite groups (because it is not clear under which 4 Between Dmitry Medvedev and Dmitry Rogozin

14 14 task for them at the moment, 5 years before the next presidential election, to consolidate) and creates problems for their nuclear allies, who have no choice but to follow Medvedev's lead, which means being attacked by elite opponents. The sooner D. Medvedev realizes that the optimal political strategy for him is the role of a “technical prime minister”, demonstrating maximum loyalty to his patron and lack of ambition, the higher his chances of remaining in his current post until 2018. At the same time, against D. Several factors play a role in Medvedev: - The dissatisfaction of the bureaucracy (both the part that was part of the "V. Putin's return" party and the part that played in D. Medvedev's second term and is now frustrated by the failed bet); - Decrease in the level of support of the population; - Blurred political positioning. If D. Medvedev nevertheless starts to lose, then two "points of flow" of the resources he has lost within the Politburo 2.0 have already been outlined. This is, firstly, the figure of Moscow Mayor S. Sobyanin, who has a number of serious advantages: - the experience of a successful leader of the region (Tyumen region), who was elected in competitive elections in 2000 and left his post with a high level of popular support and elites; - relationships that have developed over two decades with the heads of leading private companies in the fuel and energy sector and the experience of interacting with the main oligarchs of the Putin wave, who took part in the division of Luzhkov's legacy in Moscow; - rooted positions in the regional elites due to work in the Federation Council and participation in the construction of the All Russia bloc, which during the parliamentary elections in 1999 at the right time became a weak link in the Primakov-Luzhkov coalition, which competed with V. Putin; - special relations with the elites of the national subjects of the Federation, in particular Tatarstan; - the presence of its own pool of governors in the Urals (V. Yakushev, V. Basargin, E. Kuyvashev); - the largest after the federal bureaucracy and a powerful financial base.

15 15 The political strategy of S. Sobyanin's team, assuming that his long-term goal is to rise to the highest post in the state, should include several elements: » governors; - formation of its own personnel reserve in Moscow and in the regions; - legitimizing oneself as a public politician in Moscow through the procedure of direct elections 5. Taking the post of prime minister without going through this stage will create opportunities for negative mythologization of the results of Sobyanin's rule in Moscow and speculation about the level of support from the population. At the same time, despite the statements of S. Sobyanin that he does not plan early elections, it is precisely the game with timing that can become its competitive advantage, for example, holding early elections of the mayor simultaneously with the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2014. In the medium term, the transition to the government and the election of a new mayor of Moscow under the slogan of continuity can give S. Sobyanin the effect of “cementing the electorate " in the capital. Groups of influence that are not interested in the growth of the influence of the Sobyanin group are forced to rely on the support of his “natural competitor” in Moscow, the leader of the Civic Platform party M. Prokhorov. Therefore, exotic situational alliances are not ruled out, for example, S. Chemezov M. Prokhorov, which can manifest themselves not only on the Moscow site, but also in other regions, in particular, in the Urals. At the moment, the most obvious function of the figure of M. Prokhorov is the role of an instrument of pressure on S. Sobyanin. However, M. Prokhorov's potential is strengthened by the fact that if he comes to the executive branch, he can become the leader of the Krasnoyarsk team and, more broadly, the Siberians 6, diluting the influence of the St. Petersburg team. From the image point of view, the oligarch is suitable for the role of a short-term anti-crisis prime minister implementing a set of unpopular reforms (like Sergei Kiriyenko of 1998) or the first deputy prime minister-reformer under a conservative prime minister, for example, S. Chemezov (a role similar to the one that Serhiy Tigipko, bronze medalist of the presidential elections in 2010 under Mykola Azarov, continues to play in Ukraine. The second pole of elite attraction is the ex-Minister of Finance A. Kudrin, who still has a trump card in the form of the "cot in the kitchen" factor (1996, V. Putin's invitation to Moscow after the defeat of Anatoly Sobchak's team in the elections) and, in fact, has already replaced D. Medvedev as Putin's commissioner for communications with the West. Unlike S. Sobyanin, A. Kudrin does not have stable positions in the regional elites, but on the other hand, he managed to turn the pool of elite groups against himself with his position as a “mean knight”. It is worth noting his obvious image problems (the image of a liberal, far from the people, defiantly voicing unpopular theses), which make it problematic to elect him for 5 one of the potential recruitment sites is the Irkutsk region, where in 2012 the governor of Chemezov-Prokhorovka Sergey Eroshchenko was appointed.

16 16 presidential elections. However, A. Kudrin is the best candidate for prime minister in a situation where it will be necessary to implement an anti-crisis policy in the event of the failure of the existing government and demonstrate an image reset in relations with the West. The hardware, intra-elite and image breakthrough of S. Shoigu in the fall of 2012 created the effect of inflated expectations in the elite and rumors about his possible succession. However, in our opinion, the Minister of Defense has a number of serious limitations: - historically associated with the B. Yeltsin family, he was an alien body in Putin's team for a long time and, despite friendly relations with the president, did not become his inner circle; - indifferent to religion, but a Buddhist by roots, S. Shoigu as a presidential candidate can cause serious opposition from the Orthodox and Muslim lobbies; - S. Shoigu's image as an anti-crisis manager is actually vulnerable, as the experience of the fires in the summer of 2010 showed. With the availability of a media resource, his legacy in the Ministry of Emergency Situations can be revised quite quickly and aggravated by using mistakes in the post of Minister of Defense. However, S. Shoigu may be in demand by V. Putin in the role of an anti-crisis manager of law enforcement agencies, whose increasing independence may soon become threatening for the first person. Once (in January-May 2000) S. Shoigu formally played this role, holding the post of Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the security forces. Now he can fight to really take over this functionality, including saddling the anti-corruption agenda. Deputy Prime Minister D. Rogozin is a natural competitor to S. Shoigu in the niche of an image leader in the military-industrial complex and a “patriotic security official”. The ex-leader of the Motherland bloc (9% in the elections to the State Duma in 2003) is one of the few in the current leadership of the country who has successful experience in public political activity. Also, D. Rogozin is the only government official, except for D. Medvedev, who is the formal leader of United Russia, which has its own political infrastructure (the re-created Rodina party and the movement in support of the army, navy and defense industry). However, he loses to the Minister of Defense both in intra-elite support and in such an important indicator as V. Putin's trust (after the Fronde, he was forgiven, but not fully rehabilitated). All the more reason for S. Shoigu's opponents to pump up the public potential of D. Rogozin as his counterweight. D. Rogozin’s natural ideological allies could be pro-government political forces of a patriotic orientation, for example, the Cossack Party and the Movement in Support of the Labor Man, as well as political projects built around the governors of the southern regions, in particular the heads Krasnodar Territory Alexander Tkachev.

17 17 However, in our opinion, the search for new personnel reservoirs by V. Putin's team will also lie in a non-political plane. In addition to the project of the All-Russian Popular Front, which allows the party in power to demonstrate maximum ideological flexibility, the president himself outlined several experimental sites: - The Russian Geographical Society as a network structure that can exploit the theme of regional patriotism and include regional elites in its activities, with an emphasis on Siberia and the Far East East (potential platform for S. Shoigu); - a movement to return the First World War to the historical circulation - a synthesis of conservative values ​​of the imperial and Soviet periods, the heroes of the First World War as then the heroes of the Civil War on both sides, etc. (a natural platform for the head of the presidential administration, Sergei Ivanov); - student sports societies as a tool for training and rallying the future political elite according to the American model. If we talk about electoral procedures, then the returned elections to the State Duma in single-mandate districts and the elections of governors can be used to test new personnel (and not only winners, but also figures who did not win, but received a decent percentage of votes, can fall into the personnel reserve). From a technological point of view, the tools for resetting the elites in the hands of V. Putin can be: 1. Reconfiguring the government in several ways - Personnel changes while maintaining D. Medvedev as head of government. In particular, the option already mentioned in the first part of the report with the transfer of former ministers, and now assistants to the president, back to the government, but already in the rank of deputy prime ministers. The result of the combination will be the appointment of strong deputy prime ministers who are personally responsible to V. Putin and have the authority to oversee the government. So far, and this can be seen from the slide of the orbits of Russian power, all deputy prime ministers, with the exception of Igor Shuvalov, are weak and are far beyond the orbit of V. Putin. The transition to this model, most likely, will indicate complete failure from tandemocracy and V. Putin's restoration of the situation of the mid-2000s. However, the institution of new strong vice-premiers is capable of creating problems within the Politburo 2.0, since part of the informal functions of its members may be taken over by V. Putin's new proxies. Another limitation on the implementation of this model is precisely the lack of trusted persons who can be given control over all areas of government without giving rise to new conflicts within the elite groups - Personnel reshuffling when changing the head of government:

18 18 - Prime technocrat (A. Zhukov, D. Kozak, A. Khloponin); - conservative prime minister (S. Chemezov, S. Ivanov); - social prime minister (V. Mativenko); - Premier liberal reformer (A. Kudrin, M. Prokhorov); - the prime minister-cleaner (S. Shoigu), who is pushing out from the apparatus bridgeheads those groups to which V. Putin has obligations and which he does not want to personally move; - successor Prime Minister (S. Sobyanin, S. Shoigu). 2. Strengthening of another, in addition to the Presidential Administration, an alternative center of power to the government, the Security Council. Perhaps only as a situational move and a prelude to the resignation of the government; 3. Holding early elections to the State Duma to reset the political spectrum (including existing parliamentary parties that will either not get into the next State Duma at all, or get there with a much worse result) and justify the resignation of D. Medvedev from the post of prime minister. V. Putin can even afford to lose the parliamentary elections in order to give an opportunity to throw out the negative emotions of the population and take revenge already on the presidential ones. The effect of the “new Putin” can be given by his nomination as a presidential candidate in 2018 from a coalition of new political forces (following the example of D. Medvedev’s coalition nomination in 2008); 4. Conducting direct elections to the Federation Council as a tool for recruiting new figures from the regions into the elite; 5. Constitutional reform, within the framework of which the administrative-territorial division of the country can be revised, the functions of the government (up to combining the posts of prime minister and president), the powers of parliament are strengthened, the post of vice president is introduced specifically for D. Medvedev. This option is good because theoretically allows to return to the Parliament the status of a place of coordination of public and business interests, which it has long lost. The beneficiary of such a decision could be a sharply raising his status in new system State Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin, who could become the driver and administrator of such a reform, and realistic terms for such a radical reconfiguration can be indicated as years; 6. Referendum on the new Constitution; 7. Creation of a political association within the framework of the Eurasian Union, involving elections to the parliamentary assembly and the head of the integration association. In this case, managers from Belarus and Kazakhstan will become a personnel reservoir for the new elites. The most time-consuming scenario, involving serious ideological, technological and organizational preparation:

19 19 - new concessions to the elites of the national republics within the country, primarily Tatarstan; - the launch of a Muslim political project within Russia that would facilitate the integration of Kazakhstan; - agreements that the first presidents of the Eurasian Union will be successively the heads of Belarus and Kazakhstan. From the point of view of the probability of the implementation of these moves, the Eurasian option seems to be the most problematic, and the simplest technological solutions are to restart the government and hold early elections to the State Duma. Evgeniy Minchenko, President of the Minchenko Consulting Communications Holding, with the participation of Kirill Petrov, Head of the Analytical Department of Minchenko Consulting. Acknowledgments for advice during the preparation of the report: Mikhail Vinogradov, President of the Petersburg Politics Foundation; Konstantin Kalachev, Head of the Political Expert Group; Alexander Kynev, political analyst; Dmitry Orlov, General Director of the Agency for Political and Economic Communications.

Report

"Politburo 2.0" on the eve of the reboot of the elite groups

January 2013

Communication holding "Minchenko Consulting" presents a continuation of the study "The Big Government of Vladimir Putin and the Politburo 2.0". The report is of interest to regional elites, Russian business and foreign investors.

Part 1. The dynamics of elite groups within the Politburo 2.0

In the previous report, we proposed the concept of the ruling elite of Russia as a specific analogue of the Soviet collective power body - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which aims to maintain the existing inter-clan balance. In our analysis, we proceed from the fact that Russian power is a conglomeration of clans and groups that compete with each other for resources. And the role of Vladimir Putin in this system remains unchanged - this is the role of an arbiter and moderator, but an influential arbitrator, whose word in conflict situations, at least for now, remains decisive.

The formation around Vladimir Putin of the Big Government (which includes the government itself and the Presidential Administration), with duplicating functionality and a composition heterogeneous in professionalism and clan representation, led, on the one hand, to an increase in the influence of the president personally, but, on the other hand, to a slowdown in the adoption of strategic decisions and reduce their quality.

At the same time, the main object of criticism from business, political elites and from the president himself was, and the intensity of the change of ministers in the first few months of the cabinet was unprecedented.

At the same time, it should be noted that the stalling of the government's work was associated, among other things, with a number of objective reasons. Among them:

· The inconsistency of the president's election promises. In particular, it is difficult to combine the tasks of creating 25 million new high-performance jobs and a gradual increase in the wages of public sector workers up to 200% of the regional average. The delay in preparing the concept of the pension reform, criticized by the president, is due, among other things, to the fact that there are difficulties in coordinating budget indications and the given parameters for increasing pensions;

· Working out "from the wheels" of the political strategy of the authorities in relation to the protest groups of the public. Only by the time the Address of the President to the Federal Assembly was announced, this strategy finally took shape (ignoring and marginalizing the liberal part of the protest, integrating part of the nationalist rhetoric into the official rhetoric of the authorities and increasing social benefits to attract socially motivated protesters to their side);

· Leveling the role of parliament and transferring it to the regime of the department for the approval of decisions of the executive branch.

Decisions that were made quickly and without public and expert discussion have already begun to fail at the implementation stage. For example, Minister of Justice Alexander Konovalov said he did not know how to administer the Law on Foreign Agents. The decision taken in conjunction with the budget to increase pension payments for workers in hazardous industries has sharply increased the fiscal burden on businesses and a number of budget organizations (while the explanatory note to the law noted that no additional federal budget expenditures would be required).

However The ruling coalition succeeded on the whole in solving the tactical tasks that it set for itself:

1. Keep political protest within manageable limits;

2. Ensure acceptable performance of the "party of power" in the October 2012 regional elections;

3. Reduce the potential for external influence on the Russian elite (apparently, the anti-tobacco law was put forward in the same logic, since it was the lobby of tobacco TNCs that until recently was the most influential foreign lobby in Russian authorities).

The use of the rhetoric of an external threat, law enforcement agencies and the anti-corruption campaign to solve domestic political problems has led to serious progress within the Politburo 2.0. The security forces corporation has significantly strengthened its position within the Politburo 2.0. The head of the Foreign Service returned to the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo. The new head acquired the status of a full member of the Politburo 2.0. The heads of power ministries and departments, which previously belonged to the orbits of influence of the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, continue to distance themselves from their former patrons.

The role of the judiciary has grown as one of the tools for building an intra-elite balance, which was expressed in the entry into the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0. heads of the Supreme and Supreme Arbitration.

In the same time decline in the ratings of the president and prime minister ( true, ostavnovsheysya in recent times) forms a request for the emergence of new figures in power - "image locomotives". This is also why the intra-elite shares of Sergei Shoigu, who is practically the only federal politician who has recently shown an increase in the trust rating among the population, soared sharply. Also, with varying degrees of success, the Mayor, the Speaker of the Council, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin are trying to claim the role of charismatics.

The relative success of United Russia in the regional and municipal elections in autumn 2012 was achieved in the conditions of active use of administrative resources and a relatively low turnout. Therefore, the influence of figures with their own political projects and additional instruments of political influence is growing (head of Rostekhnologii Sergey Chemezov, first deputy head of the Administration, head, presidential plenipotentiary in the Central Federal District Alexander Beglov).

The formation of an intra-elite coalition (Sergei Chemezov, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Rogozin, Igor Shuvalov), which achieved the resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (naturally, who left the Politburo 2.0 as a result), took place with the active participation of Chairman of the Board of Directors Viktor Zubkov, who thus returned to the number of candidate members of the Politburo 2.0.

It is worth noting low influence of the governor's corps on the political agenda. In the regional bloc, only two of the current heads of regions, the head of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and. The position of the Governor of St., who is turning into a "lame duck" in front of his eyes, has worsened. In the same time Today, three plenipotentiaries of the President can claim the role of regional heavyweights in the federal districts - Alexander Khloponin, Viktor Ishaev and Alexander Beglov. Two of them are former governors, who also have the status of members of the Government (as vice-premiers and ministers, respectively). As for Beglov, he skillfully uses the apparatus influence that has been preserved from the time of his work as the chief personnel officer of the Kremlin.

Yury Trutnev became a new candidate for Politburo 2.0 membership in the technical bloc, who very quickly found himself a new niche in the State Council as a moderator of regional disagreements.

The legislative fever of the fall session of 2012 forced us to reconsider the functional roles of some of the candidates in Politburo 2.0. Thus, the leaders of both chambers of parliament were moved to the "new Secretariat of the Central Committee", while the deputy heads of the Administration and Dmitry Peskov showed themselves not as performers, but rather as ideologists, therefore they were moved to the Political bloc of candidates for members of the Politburo 2.0. The most important function of the representatives of this bloc is to work out alternative ways of governing, including ideological ones, without changing the foundations of the existing political system.

There was one change in the number of candidates for Politburo 2.0 from business. Andrey Kostin was included in the list to ensure the presence of representatives of all four systemically important banks: Sberbank, VEB, VTB and Rosselkhozbank. It is worth noting that VEB Chairman Vladimir Dmitriev is not included in the list of candidates, since the activities of this bank are supervised personally by Vladimir Putin through First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov. Rosselkhozbank is headed by Dmitry Patrushev - the son of a candidate member of the Politburo 2.0 from the legal-power bloc N. Patrushev.

Otherwise, the business block of the Politburo 2.0 demonstrates stability. Significant redistribution of property is not planned, the place of criminal showdowns was taken by high London courts dealing with offshore assets. Moreover, the settlement of the conflict around Norilsk Nickel showed that it is possible to reach a compromise not only in the course of a foreign lawsuit. After the departure of Vladimir Strzhalkovsky as head of the company, a strategic bloc of three big businessmen from the 1990s emerges: Vladimir Potanin, Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich. It is also important that a large-scale privatization program has fallen out of the top priority, and the political rhetoric of returning assets withdrawn from Russia remains rhetoric. The state is only increasing its assets, as happened in the deal to buy TNK-BP. As a result of the deal with Rosneft, Alfa Group and Viktor Vekselberg received impressive free funds, which creates additional room for them to maneuver.

Assessing the resource potential of full members of the Politburo 2.0 (see Table 4), it is important to note the following:

Prime Minister and nominal leader of United Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, retaining the first place in terms of resources, after the departure of Anatoly Serdyukov lost some influence on the security forces, and as a result of a vague image positioning, he worsened his rating indicators;

On the rise is the tandem of the head of the Administration and the head of Russian Technologies, Sergei Chemezov, who has increased his influence on the administrative apparatus and law enforcement agencies;

Engaged in political management, as a result of success in the October elections and the gradual fading of protest activity, he also strengthened his position;

A newcomer to the Politburo 2.0, Sergei Shoigu, is showing an impressive rise in ratings both among the population and among elite groups, especially regional ones. However, with the current image, the growth of his rating has a ceiling ( see details in part 2 of the report). According to some military experts, he has already made a number of mistakes as head of the Ministry of Defense ("stepping on the same rake as Serdyukov"). In addition, the administrative influence of Shoigu in his previous fiefdoms (the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Moscow Region) is limited by the rather high independence of successors. In particular, personnel policy and. about. Andrey Vorobyov, Governor of the Moscow Region, says that today he is in the orbit of influence of Gennady Timchenko;

The tandem of businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Yuri Kovalchuk maintains a stable position in Vladimir Putin's entourage. However, the situational reconciliation between Timchenko and Igor Sechin is unlikely to last long, given the systemic nature of the companies they lead;

The mayor, despite a number of unpopular decisions made by him, continues to be among the candidates for successors and prime ministers. However, the growth of his influence is limited by the unsuccessful start of his team members Viktor Basargin and Yevgeny Kuyvashev as governors in Perm Krai and Sverdlovsk Oblast;

The situational decrease in the influence of the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, is associated with a change in his status, which entails a decrease in administrative and power resources, as well as with a large number of conflicts within the industry in which he is involved.

Over the coming year the conflicts already mentioned in the previous report will remain on the agenda of intra-elite struggle:

Apparatus competition for control over the fuel and energy complex between the secretary of the relevant presidential commission I. Sechin and the relevant deputy prime minister A. Dvorkovich (and the coalition of nomenklatura and business groups that joined him);

Competition around the "big privatization" program;

The tension between the leadership of Moscow and the Moscow Region and the correction of the contours of the “Greater Moscow” project, which will be aggravated by the elections of the Governor of the Moscow Region in the fall of 2013 and the Moscow City Duma in the fall of 2014. Deterioration of his relations with Dmitry Medvedev, caused by rumors about a possible transition of the mayor of Moscow to chair of the Prime Minister;

The struggle of the security forces around the creation of a single Investigative Committee. Since the result for competing groups is not obvious, and the influence of almost all law enforcement agencies has recently grown, there are fewer enthusiasts for this idea. In a number of recent high-profile cases, the FSB used its own investigation, without resorting to the support of the TFR;

The struggle around the restart of the project "Corporation for the Development of Siberia and the Far East."

high the likelihood of a new attack on the management of Gazprom in order to reorganize the company. have recently weakened due to the shale revolution threatening the positions of the “national treasure” and the partial loss of markets for Russian gas. Therefore, the idea of ​​restructuring Gazprom, which is now being actively promoted by the head of Sberbank German Gref, can be revived (for example, in the format of separating the transport component and creating 5-6 mining companies that can be distributed among the main elite groups).

The actualization of objective contradictions between the Ministry of Defense and manufacturers of military products is also inevitable. Their sharpness will largely depend on political alignments and coalitions.

In addition, the new hardware voltage points should be noted:

Between ministers and ex-ministers who moved to the posts of assistants to the president (most noticeable in the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education and Science);

Between the Government apparatus and presidential aide Elvira Nabiullina.

An attempt to remove these conflicts within the framework of the Big Government is the practice of regular reports of ministers to the president on the progress in the implementation of his decrees. During the year, a reorganization of the Cabinet of Ministers is not ruled out, during which a number of former Putin ministers may return to the government as deputy prime ministers.

Evgeny Minchenko , President of the communication holding "Minchenko consulting",

starring Kirill Petrov, head of the analytical department of Minchenko consulting .

http://*****/analitika/analitika_27.html

More details in part 2 of the report.

In the previous report, we recall, the concept of the ruling elite of Russia was proposed as a specific analogue of the Soviet collective power body - the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which aims to maintain the existing inter-clan balance. In their analysis, experts proceed from the fact that the Russian government is a conglomerate of clans and groups that compete with each other for resources. And the role of Vladimir Putin in this system remains unchanged for the time being - it is the role of an arbiter and moderator, but an influential arbiter, whose word in conflict situations remains decisive.

During Putin's next presidential term, the main object of criticism from business, political elites and from the president himself was the government of Dmitry Medvedev, and the intensity of the change of ministers in the first few months of the cabinet was unprecedented, political analysts say.

The security forces corporation has significantly strengthened its position within the Politburo 2.0. The head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Mikhail Fradkov, returned to the list of candidates for membership in the Politburo. The new head of the Ministry of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, has acquired the status of a full member of the Politburo 2.0. According to the authors of the report, the heads of power ministries and departments, which previously belonged to the orbits of influence of the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, continue to distance themselves from their former patrons.

In addition, the role of the judiciary has grown as one of the tools for building an intra-elite balance, which was reflected in the inclusion of the leaders of the Supreme Court Vladimir Lebedev and the Supreme Arbitration Court Anton Ivanov among the candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0.

Politburo 2.0 (click to enlarge)

Formation of an intra-elite coalition (Sergey Chemezov, Sergei Ivanov, Dmitry Rogozin, Igor Shuvalov), which achieved the resignation of Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov (naturally, who left the Politburo 2.0 as a result), took place with the active participation of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO Gazprom, Viktor Zubkov, who thus returned to the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0.

Experts say and low influence of the governor's corps on the political agenda. Only two of the current heads of the regions - the heads of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov and Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov - were included in the number of candidates for membership in the Politburo 2.0 in the regional bloc. The position of the governor of St. Petersburg, Georgy Poltavchenko, has deteriorated, turning into a "lame duck" before our eyes. At the same time, three plenipotentiaries of the president in the federal districts - Alexander Khloponin, Viktor Ishaev and Alexander Beglov - can claim the role of regional heavyweights today. Two of them are former governors, who at the same time have the status of members of the Government (as vice-premiers and ministers, respectively).

Yury Trutnev became a new candidate for Politburo 2.0 membership in the technical block, who extremely quickly found himself a new niche within the State Council as a moderator of regional disagreements.

The legislative fever of the autumn session of 2012 forced the authors of the study to reconsider the functional roles of some candidates in the Politburo 2.0. So, the heads of both chambers of parliament were moved to the "new Secretariat of the Central Committee", while Deputy Heads of the Presidential Administration Alexei Gromov and Dmitry Peskov showed themselves not as performers, but rather as ideologists, therefore they were moved to the Political Bloc of Candidates for Members of the Politburo 2.0. The most important function of the representatives of this bloc is to work out alternative ways of governing, including ideological ones, without changing the foundations of the existing political system.

Spheres of influence

Among the candidates for the Politburo 2.0 from business there was one change. Andrey Kostin was included in the list to ensure the presence of representatives of all four systemically important banks: Sberbank, VEB, VTB and Rosselkhozbank.

The business block of the Politburo 2.0, as noted in the report, demonstrates stability. Significant redistribution of property is not planned, the place of criminal showdowns was taken by high London courts dealing with offshore assets. Moreover, the settlement of the conflict around Norilsk Nickel showed that it is possible to reach a compromise not only in the course of a foreign lawsuit. After the departure of the head of the company Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a strategic block of three large businessmen from the 1990s looms: Vladimir Potanin, Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich. It is also important that the large-scale privatization program, according to the authors of the study, fell out of the top priorities, and the political rhetoric of returning the assets withdrawn from Russia remains rhetoric. The state is only increasing its assets, as happened in the deal to buy TNK-BP. As a result of the deal with Rosneft, Alfa Group and Viktor Vekselberg received impressive free funds, which creates additional room for them to maneuver.

Assessing the resource potential of full-fledged members of the Politburo 2.0, experts note that the Prime Minister and the nominal leader of United Russia Dmitry Medvedev, maintaining the first place in terms of resources, after the departure of Anatoly Serdyukov lost some influence on the security forces, and as a result of vague image positioning downgraded its ratings.

On the rise is tandem of the head of the Presidential Administration Sergey Ivanov and the head of Russian Technologies Sergey Chemezov, which increased its influence on the administrative apparatus and law enforcement agencies.

Political manager of the Kremlin Viacheslav Volodin as a result of success in the October elections and the gradual fading of protest activity, he also strengthened his position.

New to Politburo 2.0 Sergei Shoigu shows impressive rating growth both among the population and among elite groups, especially regional ones.

However, the administrative influence of Shoigu in his previous fiefdoms (the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Moscow Region) is limited by the rather high independence of successors. In particular, the personnel policy of the acting Andrey Vorobyov, Governor of the Moscow Region, says that today he is in the orbit of influence of Gennady Timchenko, the authors of the report note.

Tandem of businessmen Gennady Timchenko and Yuri Kovalchuk maintains a stable position in Vladimir Putin's entourage. However, the situational reconciliation between Timchenko and Igor Sechin is unlikely to last long, given the systemic nature of the companies they lead.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, despite a number of unpopular decisions made by him, continues to be among the candidates for successors and prime ministers.

The situational decline in the influence of the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, according to political analysts, is associated with a change in his status, which entails a decrease in administrative and power resources, as well as with a large number of conflicts within the industry in which he is involved.

As for the agenda of intra-elite struggle, according to the authors of the study, there is a high probability of a new attack on the management of Gazprom in order to reorganize companies. The positions of Alexei Miller have recently weakened due to the shale revolution threatening the positions of the "national treasure" and the partial loss of markets for Russian gas. Therefore, the idea of ​​restructuring Gazprom, which is now being actively promoted by the head of Sberbank German Gref, can be revived.

And an attempt to resolve conflicts within the framework of the Big Government is the practice of regular reports of ministers to the president on the implementation of his decrees.

"During the year, a reorganization of the cabinet of ministers is not ruled out, during which a number of former Putin ministers may return to the government as deputy prime ministers,"- conclude the authors of the study.