On September 5, Vladimir Putin gathered a large part of the political elite in the Kremlin and claimed his new nation-wide project, which implied improvement of Russian citizens’ lives. The President spoke of the need to better the population’s life in his state of the nation address to the Federal Assembly, however, he then only outlined the actions of the power in this direction. On September 5, Putin named specific measures to improve the living of the Russian people. The list of priority tasks included increase of salaries for scientists and doctors, settle the housing problems, including for the military servicemen, and agriculture issues. According to the estimations of Arkady Dvorkovich, the head of the Expert Office in the Presidential Administration, the fulfillment of the president’s instructions will require around 115 billion rubles more to the budget of 2006.

The important characteristic of the new initiatives of the President is their image orientation. The significant increase of salaries for doctors and scientists gives hope to other budget groups that there will be their turn too and their income will grow. Vladimir Putin claimed the improvement of the living standards as a national project. At that, the initiatives of the President will significantly increase the expenses and might lead to inflation raise, because the additional 115 billion rubles will increase the money mass seriously. The positive influence on the economic development of the country by the president’s initiatives will reveal only in the strategic future. All this shows that Vladimir Putin and his circle chose some acute social issues, temporary solution to which can be done by simple increase of investment. Now, the technologists of the Presidential Administration (PA) have a strong informational lead that can be intensified and that have good chances to become one of the core ones to increase credibility to the president.

Vladimir Putin’s announcement on September 5 can have important positional meaning. The President claimed the establishment of the commission on national projects that he will personally run. Now, the development and supervision over national projects is carried out by President Assistant Igor Shuvalov. He is a very ambitious official. Shuvalov tried to lobby the start of the new administrative reform for a long time and make himself a key figure, however, in vain. Now, he has a chance to head the commission on national projects, which means that Igor Shuvalov will become a mediator between the head of state and the government and will watch the fulfillment of the president’s will. Shuvalov has a wide experience of working in the government, where he headed the Stuff and had to leave after the start of the confrontation with Mikhail Kasyanov, who them was the premier. Potential positional improvement of Shuvalov worries the government ‘liberals’, especially Economic Development and Trade Minister Herman Gref. He fears intrusion into the economic planning, thus tries to prevent Shuvalov’s appointment as chief of national projects commission.

Besides Shuvalov, the initiatives of the president are highly profitable for the technologists for the Presidential Administration. Currently, only they are ready for the election battles: they convinced the head of state in the necessity to launch the election processes today. The organization of a strong informational campaign to support Putin is one of the direct duties for the Presidential Administration employees. The non-siloviki part of the PA has very powerful media resources. Siloviki are currently only starting to form their informal media holding and cannot respond to the challenge of the PA technologists.

The fall session of the lower house has begun. The deputies will have to work hard until the end of 2005. The list of priority directions of Duma’s work includes the budget readings for 2006, legal formulation of various Putin’s instructions that grow in number. The president announced the list of instructions for the power bodies on May 11, 2005, which included 15 bills. On September 5, Putin claimed the need to amend the budget of 2006, which had already been introduced to the lower house of the parliament.

Its discussion for 2006 will become the most important event for the State Duma. There are representatives from many participants of the budget process in the lower house. The majority is held by the United Russia that is run by the Presidential Administration, however, this doesn’t solve the potential conflicts. UR is not a uniform party: the most powerful groups inside it are the representatives of the siloviki team that run some of Duma’s committees, and the deputies affiliated with the regional elites. The members of the siloviki team will try to expand the budget items that are linked with the enforcement power structures. The regional lobbyists will holler for additional finances to some of the federation’s subject. Besides, there are representatives of large companies in the Duma as well, who will be lobbying for the interests of their bosses and offices, with which they are connected by business interests.

The political element of the bills that are priority for the Duma is highly important. Vladimir Putin instructed to develop a legal platform for the Public Chamber to fulfill the functions of civil control over the mass media. Deputies tried to a long time to toughen the Mass Media Law, but each time they stumbled against rigid counteraction from the representatives of the central mass media that united against the deputies and carried out a large propaganda campaign. Now, the deputies have the opportunity to limit the independency of the mass media though the Public Chamber (PC), which so far has no real authority. Formation of the PC has already started. In the nearest time, it will begin active working. By this moment, the deputies will have given the PC the opportunity to influence on the mass media, but this will be rather tough to carry out within the current law field. 

September 4 Vladimir Masorin is assigned chief commander of the navy replacing Vladimir Kuroyedov. Chief of the military ministry Sergei Ivanov tried to gain the system of management over the Defense Ministry every since he became the minister, but in vain. The backbone of the ‘old generals’ formed inside the ministry and opposed to him. The leader of this group was General HQ Chief Anatoly Kvashnin. The minister failed to outstrip him for a long time, but in the end, he lobbied his retirement. During the opposition with Kvashnin and later on, Ivanov could prop only on some top military commanders, who would get ousted for violations and the low professionalism if not the protection of the minister. Thus, the chief of the ministry sticks to the people like Kuroyedov.

There is another important reason to preserve the posts for the ineffective commanders – the protest movement in the army loses leaders. After Putin was elected president, officers hoped to see a better life but this hasn’t happened up to now. It is the opposite – each year, the power reduces the appeal of serving in the army. As a result, the protest moods in the army escalate. This made the power attempt to move the most authoritative generals into the civil offices: in the first place, those, who went through the Chechen wars. Today, almost all authoritative generals that took part in the Chechnya actions are assigned to work in the state power body. The ineffective generals, however, cannot become leaders of the protest movement in the army.

Nomination of Mikhail Khodorkovsky to the by election into the State Duma from the University District was one of the most noticeable events of the political life last month. The desire of the former Yukos chief to become a deputy was backed by many players of the party field: for them, this was a good opportunity to increase own rating. The majority of the initiative group to support Mikhail Khodorkovsky as the candidate for the by election do not actually plan a victory or even participation in the race.

According to the law, the former Yukos chief can be registered as a candidate before the verdict takes affect. Currently, Khodorkovsky can be elected because he addressed an appeal, but after its reading in the Moscow City Court, he will have no chance to run the race. On September 14, Moscow Court will read Khodorkovsky’s appeal. Most probably, it will be turned down and the verdict will take affect.

The theme of Khodorkovsky’s nomination as a candidate turned into a large informational campaign. Former chief of Yukos and the representatives of his initiative group constantly come out with big claims. On this wave, the people that earlier showed no political ambitions tried to enter the politics field. Such include former colonel of the Chief Investigation Office (GRU) Vladimir Kvashkov, who is currently in the investigation ward and used to be Khodorkovsky’s jail mate for some time. Kvachkov is charged with organizing a murder attempt on RAO UES Chair Anatoly Chubais.

Kvachkov’s nomination as candidate can be an important precedent after which investigatory ward prisoners will start nominating themselves candidates for legislative assemblies in the regions (the by election in the State Duma will be the last chance to get into the State Duma through a single mandate). It is also possible that other prisoners will want to run the by election, turning the political fight into a show. The high level of virtualization of the policy will allow the prisoners to claim their political programs, gain support from political parties. This is a negative process for the political life of the country, because the population will again have poor credibility for the power and perceive the politics as a ‘reality show’.