Russia's presidential election was held Sunday, March 4, 2012. Ambassador James F. Collins in Washington and Dmitri Trenin in Moscow discussed the outcome of the election and how it may influence the country's policies.
TOM CARVER: Good morning, everyone. This is Tom Carver; I’m the vice president of communications at the Carnegie Endowment. And this is a media conference call on yesterday’s Russian elections. Joining me is Ambassador Jim Collins, the head of our Russia-Eurasia program; and hopefully Dmitri Trenin, the head of our Russia office, will be coming on the line momentarily from Russia.
So obviously lots to discuss. This is on the record, and we aim to keep it to no longer than 30 minutes. So why don’t we start with you, Jim? Was there anything about yesterday’s result that surprised you in any way? (Chuckles.)
JAMES F. COLLINS: I don’t think there was any great surprise in the outcome. I think personally it’s a – Mr. Putin did slightly better than I thought he might. I haven’t been able to look at the results on a regional basis, except to know that one of the key constituencies, Moscow, did not give Mr. Putin 50 percent. And that says something about some of the challenges he’s going to face in the future in governing.
Second point I’d make is that the foreign observers have been critical, but really have stopped well short of suggesting that there’s any way in which Mr. Putin did not have the kind of majority that would have given him the victory in any case. And I think that’s not very surprising, given who was running against him.
So he is elected. He is to take office formally in May. In the interim, we’ll probably have some sense of his priorities and how he intends to govern by watching his appointments to office, who is going to be the new government. I have to say that I watched his statement last night of – after the election. It had a certain Obama-esque quality about – and if you will remember Chicago –
MR. CARVER: Right.
MR. COLLINS: – but –
MR. CARVER: Were the tears real or caused by the wind, do you think?
MR. COLLINS: Well, he says it was caused by the wind, and I’m prepared to believe Mr. Putin. What does strike me about it was, it was a pretty tough speech coming out. I also thought it important to note that there were efforts – organized rallies all over the country. It wasn’t just in Moscow. I watched this morning – there were rallies of one kind or another –
MR. CARVER: Pro-Putin rallies.
MR. COLLINS: – pro-Putin rallies of one kind or another in almost all the major urban areas across the country. Now the big question is, what happens this afternoon or this evening or as follow-on from the critics and the opposition who have rallied people before? There are a variety of statements saying that many of these people do not accept the outcome as legitimate; that this wasn’t a really fair election; all of the things you might expect.
Whether or not that is going to be sufficient, and whether or not they will have sufficient backing to organize the kinds of major protests and major meetings in any sustained way, I think is a big question. We just don’t know yet. That’s a question; and then how Mr. Putin and President Medvedev respond to it, if there are major demonstrations again in Moscow and so forth, I think will also be very important.
MR. CARVER: OK.
MR. COLLINS: So we don’t know a lot yet. I think it’s – and there’s much that we don’t know, and we’re going to have to wait and see.
MR. CARVER: OK. Just before we move kind of too far into the future –
DMITRI TRENIN: Tom, this is Dmitri Trenin, just joined from Moscow.
MR. CARVER: Oh, good morning – or good afternoon, Dmitri. Thank you for joining –
MR. TRENIN: Good evening, good morning, yes.
MR. CARVER: OK.
MR. TRENIN: I’m sorry to be – to be late. It’s a very hectic day here.
MR. CARVER: No, that’s a – (inaudible) – glad you managed to join. Well, we’ve only just started. Well, let me go straight to you then, Dmitri. I mean, for those of us on the call who are not actually in Moscow, could you give us a sense of today and – the day after, as it were, and – because there were some – a number of opposition rallies planned for Pushkin Square today, weren’t there?
MR. TRENIN: Right. One of the rallies – actually two rallies are going to be held in – one in one hour’s time, or less than one hour’s time, just under our windows; and the other one in 80 minutes’ time a little bit away from where we are, but also very close. It – the situation is tense. Lots of police are here. And you never know.
It’s a new – it’s a new stage in Russia’s ongoing political transformation, a postelection rally that I think will be dominated by the idea that the election is not the end of the protest movement – that the protest movement will continue. And actually many of the protest movement, and many of the opposition more broadly, are questioning the legitimacy of the vote and thus legitimacy of the president. This is a – this is a big thing. And this makes – (inaudible) – of everyone here tense.
MR. CARVER: But given the fact that he resisted calls for a rerun of the parliamentary elections, I mean, is – do you – do you think that there is anything that they could effectively do, the opposition, in terms of getting this overturned in any sense?
MR. TRENIN: No, no, no. There’s no question of rerunning the election. I think that Putin is truly triumphant. He has achieved his goal of two-thirds majority, or let’s say two-thirds of the vote going his way. He sees that as a – as a major victory over his enemies, foreign and domestic. There can be no going back on that.
However, having said – having said that, there’s – there has been news of President Medvedev willing to look into the – (inaudible) – thing – the – (inaudible) – affair, whether it’s perfectly legal. There is also a process moving ahead with the new legislation regarding the direct election of governors and the much easier terms for party registration.
You have at the same time a demonstration of toughness and strength, and at the same time an outreach to the protesters. So Mr. Putin is very interesting. On the one hand, Mr. Putin denounces those who voted against him as almost agents of a foreign power. And at the same time, Russia’s government-controlled television gives a prime time to a talk show – a live talk show that features some of Mr. Putin’s bitter – most bitter critics. And they are allowed to say what they’re saying. It’s a very interesting combination of otherwise very difficult-to-reconcile things.
MR. CARVER: We’ll throw that to people for questions in a second. But I just – I have one more question, which is about the opposition. I mean, what is the future of people like Prokhorov and Navalny and those that have gained prominence through this election, do you think now?
MR. TRENIN: Well, I think that Mr. Prokhorov certainly has achieved a status of a politician, having (polled ?) at about 8 percent of the vote and having (polled ?) more votes than Vladimir Zhirinovsky. So he has – he has come third, according to the official count. He has come third in the national vote, and he has come second in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Again, we’re talking about the official figures.
This is – this is a huge achievement for someone who is – who is one of the richest men in this country. And, you know, when a Russian voter came to the polling stations yesterday, he or she had the chance to look at the incomes of the five candidates to the presidency. And, frankly, some people didn’t know the – what to call the number of rubles – (laughter) – that Mr. Prokhorov had made in the previous four years. It’s a requirement that says, you know, you just need to circulate your income for the past four years. And, you know, one – I heard people ask, what goes after billion? So what’s the next one? (Laughter.)
MR. CARVER: There were so many zeroes.
MR. TRENIN: (Inaudible) – you know, it still is in many ways a very poor country, or a country with many – too many poor people. And there’s a lot of traditional distrust in Russia toward people with a lot of money. That, even all that notwithstanding, someone like Prokhorov – a billionaire, a playboy, a – you know, a person who never had – never dabbled in politics before, frankly – to have achieved this status is tremendous.
Now Navalny, of course, was not part of the election. Navalny faces – oh, let me put it this way. Prokhorov will probably start a new party, as he said he would. And that may turn him into a leader of a liberal right-wing party. That’s the future that I would see for Prokhorov, unless Mr. Putin decides to use him in some other way and, let’s say, invites him to join the government as a vice prime minister or something like that.
Navalny, of course, was not on the ballot. Navalny is all in the blogs, the blogosphere. I think he faces a more challenging future. He either stays there as a blogger or he goes into the open and becomes a politician. And frankly, when you’re a blogger, I think you have – you don’t have to – you don’t face the problems that politicians normally face. And I frankly don’t know what Mr. Navalny would do, whether he will think of founding his own political party or movement or whether he will try to join a party and movement in order to take it over over time or something like that. He obviously has some kind of a political future, but he has to make a decision, which he has yet to – he’s still outstanding.
MR. CARVER: OK. Great. Well, let’s just see if anyone has any questions for either Dmitri in Moscow or Jim Collins here in Washington.
Q: Hi. May I –
MR. CARVER: Sure.
Q: -- Hi, I talked to a number of American experts today and some of them expect that Mr. Putin will start new wave of repression – unprecedented wave of repression against an opposition. And our experts predicted that probably we will see a kind of new modernization of political system of Russia. You know, question to Mr. Collins and Mr. Trenin, what they think about such possibilities.
MR. CARVER: Jim, do you want to –
MR. TRENIN: Over to you.
MR. COLLINS: Well, look, I think this is the great question that’s been unanswered. And we just don’t know. If you look at what has been done over the last few days, you have both directions in some sense. You have very tough words from Mr. Putin about his opponents and so forth. And then you have, as Dmitri pointed out, a variety of moves of everything from working on electing governors to opening the question about the appropriateness of the way the Khodorkovsky case was handled. I mean, all of those are suggestions that things are going to go in a rather different direction and that reforms would – will have new life.
I think it’s a great question. I think that the thing to watch most carefully is how those demonstrations are handled today. I noticed that Mr. Putin also sat down with his opponents – his electoral opponents – at the Kremlin, including Mr. Prokhorov. So there’s some – and there’s an effort, it seems to me, to convey the idea that he’s seeking unity, that he said that. This is an old theme for him that goes back to 2000. On the other hand, he is very tough on suggesting that those who work against any unity and so forth are somehow bad for the country, bad for Russia, the – serving the interests of outsiders.
So dissent, it seems to me, is not something that is going to get a warm welcome. On the other hand, it’s not at all clear that it’s going to mean physical violence or the refusal to let people meet and express their views.
MR. CARVER: Dmitri?
MR. TRENIN: Let me broadly agree with Jim. I think that it’ll be very important how the demonstrations tonight will proceed. It’s almost a miracle from where I sit that so far Russian protests have been totally nonviolent since December 5. And I hope that this continues and builds – becomes a tradition over time, that you can demonstrate, you can protest. But you avoid violence on both sides, and you avoid sending an agent provocateur to either side to start some brawl, start some violence.
I think that Mr. Putin, who was very emotional last night, who talked about victory as if the people who did not – sounding sometimes as if the people who did not vote for him were some kind of unpatriotic people or enemies of Russia or potentially playthings at the hands of the enemies of Russia – has now reached out to the politicians who ran against him. And I believe that for him the best course today and in the future would be to show to the people of Russia that he is not a president of two-thirds of the Russian people, but rather president of all Russians, and that he hears criticism of his own position, he hears criticism of his own regime, and he is ready to work with other people.
Well, this may be too good to be true, but consolidation rhetoric and politics that allows for other interests to be taken into account, decides the interest of the Kremlin and the people close to the Kremlin looks like the only winner in this situation for Mr. Putin. But as I said, Mr. Putin is ready to talk. But should he be provoked, whoever may provoke him, the response may be very harsh. And should it be – should it be harsh and brutal, then we will be living in a different era, that era may be very close at hand.
I’m not – I’m not being fearful here, but you have to be realistic. It’s – many things are still new in this – in this country and many things still stand at knife’s edge. We’ve been walking on knife’s edge for the past couple of months and hope that we will, as I said, develop some kind of – some kind of a strategy of – some kind of a habit, rather, of accommodating dissent, accommodating different views. But it should never be taken for granted.
MR. CARVER: OK. Thank you. Any other questions?
Q: Hello. I wanted to ask a question of what the prospect of six or 12 more years of Putin may mean for U.S. relations and in the region.
MR. CARVER: OK. Jim, do you want to start with that?
MR. COLLINS: Well, I think it’s certainly the case that Mr. Putin is suggesting that he’s going to be very vigorous in defending and advancing Russian interests and views. He’s far more, I’d say, succinct in expressing that view than in giving any definition to it, in terms of just what he’s going to do.
I’ve looked at his article on Foreign Policy, and it’s very carefully crafted, it seems to me. It’s, on the one hand, very tough in the sense of suggesting that Russia will defend its interests against all – (inaudible). On the other hand, it’s very careful not to close any doors. So if you look at the part of discussion on missile defense, I mean, there’s all sorts of discussion about how sort of perfidious the West has been in not following through on openings. On the other hand, there’s no sense that he’s closing the door to cooperation.
I think the real problem for reset is that it has largely accomplished its major agenda of the last couple of – 2 ½ years, the one set in 2009. And there’s much less clarity about where it goes from here. In that sense, we have a year in which in some sense I think we’re kind of involved in damage limitation, because our own political process here at home in the United States is not one conducive to big initiatives. And at the same time, Mr. Putin really has to sort of define his trajectory going forward toward the United States.
But all that said, I think Mr. Putin still makes it clear that he has a focus on Europe as the place where Europe – where Russia’s future is to be developed, and that means developing it with the United States. And we will, I hope, have the opportunity to build on the foundation that reset has put in place. But for the next couple of – I would say, for the next coming months in the year, it’s going to be a tough problem, I think, just to manage to our way through a very political time.
MR. CARVER: Dmitri, do you want to add anything?
MR. TRENIN: Tom, I agree with that. Let me just add a few things. Like Jim, I believe that the reset is a very useful thing. But it’s not a policy; it’s essentially a one-off thing that allowed one to do away with the glitches, with the irritants in the U.S.-Russian relations that had accumulated by the end of the Bush presidency. And this allowed the United States and Russia to do some useful things together.
But in order to sustain the relationship, a longer-term policy and strategy is needed on both sides. I’m not sure that either side, at this point, has such a strategy toward the other.
I do not believe that Mr. Putin is looking for trouble with the United States. His agenda is overwhelmingly focused on Russia’s economic revitalization. And he knows that his legitimacy will be judged on his performance in the social-economic field. For that, he needs very close economic relations with Europe. There’s only so much that you can do with Europe without a decent relationship with the United States. It doesn’t mean that Putin will make concessions to the U.S. on the issues of contention between the two countries, but in my view, he will certainly not be looking for trouble.
And let me add to that, that Putin’s economic agenda may push him to think harder about improving Russia’s admittedly appalling domestic investment climate, and the – including such things as accommodating more international energy (majors ?) in the Russian energy sector. And that could lead to stronger economic gains for the U.S.-Russian relationship. One already – one already has Exxon Mobile cooperating with Rosneft in the arctic. Now there’s talk about Chevron doing something in Russia.
So that may be the path for Putin to proceed upon his relations with the United States. He is unlikely to – in my view – to make – to make political, military affairs the priority of his relations with the U.S. I think it’s more likely to be economics and trade – to the extent, of course, that Russia can be a partner to the U.S. in those areas.
But let me add one thing, Putin’s election to the presidency, of course, has been a very contentious issue in Russia. Should the United States join the fray – and I think that there will be certainly public comments about the election in the United States, already there are some – they would be watched very closely by Mr. Putin and his staff.
And should they get the impression that the United States is involving itself more deeply in the Russian domestic affairs, that would confirm Mr. Putin in his view that the United States was out to get him at the election and then institute some kind of a regime change in Russia, through still supporting his detractors in the recent wave of protests in Russia. And that would certainly have an impact, and a significant if not a huge one for the U.S.-Russian relationship. So this thing we also need to bear in mind.
MR. CARVER: OK. Thanks. Any other questions? Do you think the – I mean, do you think that the kind of open – the modernization that he’s often talked about of the Russian economy will now start to actually happen – either of you? I mean –
MR. COLLINS: Let me just make one additional comment, Dmitri, to follow up on some of the things you’ve said. One of the real accomplishments of the last year has been Russia’s joining the WTO. It’s not completed yet, but apparently it’s to happen fairly soon. It seems to me, that that has a great deal of potential to permit a lot of change in Russia over time, to adjust its way of doing business, its investment climate, its business climate to international norms that it has now accepted freely on its own behalf.
I think the United States, first of all, has a tremendous interest in that succeeding and going well. But I also think it’s an important factor in the way Russia now sees its future. It is – it has basically said, we agree we are part of the global economy, and we also agree that now we cannot afford any longer not to be part of this sort of set of rules and norms that govern the international trading system. I think if we had one place to focus during the coming year, it might be on that and developing that kind of approach that could be most useful.
MR. TRENIN: Jim, I fully agree with that. No question, the most important thing that happened as a result of the reset, as far as Russia is concerned, it’s the WTO accession, which hopefully will be formally completed within a couple of months. As to the economic agenda of Mr. Putin, he believes, I think rightly, that no serious country can live without a modern industry. And Russia, in the wake of the end of the Soviet Union, has essentially deindustrialized itself.
Putin has proclaimed his goal of reindustrializing the country. It will be very important to see how he goes about that. I think he has decided to – the emphasis, to a large extent, on the military-industrial complex, which he sees as the locomotive for this reindustrialization. Well, time will tell whether this is the correct approach. A lot of people are very skeptical about that. This is not the middle of the 20th century. And then that – anyway, the Russian and the military-industrial complex is not known for its transparency or any particular freedom of corruption. So it’s in many ways a gamble.
But Mr. Putin realizes that he will not be judged again on his record of pulling Russia out of the crisis of the 1990s. His legitimacy depends on his socioeconomic performance. His obligations to the groups that form the core of his political base are enormous – well, at least by Russian standards. We’re talking about $160 billion worth of obligations that he has given during the transnational campaign. This is a huge amount of money.
We’re also talking about $750 billion of military spending that he has projected for the next eight years or so. Again, there’s only so much that the federal budget can sustain. Mr. Putin, although the oil price is currently pretty high, cannot seriously rely on that price remaining high or becoming even higher in the future. And even then the higher oil price will not necessarily be a good thing for Russia. It’s biggest market, Europe, is going through some very difficult times, and high oil prices will not help Europe’s growth. Perhaps Russia will be hit in a backward way.
So it’s all – it’s all a lot of problems for the newly-elected president. What he knows, I think, is that it’s very much about his economic performance and about the social changes in Russia that he cannot control anyway, and which are going beyond his vision, I think, of the Russian state and the Russian system. So I think that’s – six years is a very long time. We don’t know where Russia will be six years from now, neither does Mr. Putin. Things will start changing from tonight. We’ll see how – which way the direction of change will go.
The most important thing is that the change stays peaceful and it’s – they also have to (inaudible) – a political manner – a political way, hopefully with – involving more and more people in their process of discussing the issues and eventually deciding on the issues.
MR. CARVER: OK. Well, I think we can only echo that. Well, we’re up on time. If there are any final questions for our two participants, speak now. Otherwise, there will be a full transcript of this up on the web sometime during the course of today our time. And just – (inaudible) – to say, I hope it goes safely tonight, Dmitri. I know that one of the protests is very near where you are at the moment, so I hope, as you say, that it is peaceful.
MR. TRENIN: (Inaudible) – Tom.
MR. CARVER: OK. Thank you very much to Jim Collins and Dmitri Trenin.
MR. COLLINS: Thank you very much.
MR. TRENIN: Thank you.
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