The tandem of President Dmitry Medvedev and his predecessor-turned-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin performed remarkably well during its first year in power, but the current economic crisis may put it to serious test.
The duo demonstrated good teamwork and ensured stability and continuity, which were the main slogans when Mr. Putin promoted his disciple and ally to presidency and when the President appointed Mr. Putin Prime Minister after taking oath in May 2008. The duumvirate steered Russia confidently through a major military and political crisis — the war against Georgia and the subsequent showdown with the West — and kept the country on course when the global financial meltdown struck it.
Mr. Putin has been playing the lead role even though the President has far more constitutional powers than the Prime Minister. The Russian Constitution empowers the President to define foreign and domestic policies and gives him direct responsibility over the security and defence establishments. However, Mr. Putin, whose authority as Prime Minister is largely confined to the economy, still has a say on foreign policy and retains effective control over the security services and the military. He also controls Parliament through his leadership of the dominant party, United Russia.
Nevertheless, the duumvirate has established a credible division of authority, ending a long tradition of concentration of power in the hands of one ruler in the Kremlin that has hampered effective government. The emergence of two centres of power also helps to create checks and balances that have been conspicuously absent in the Russian system.
“Perhaps for the first time in a thousand years Russia lives and functions — and this is not considered something exotic — in a situation of a real separation of powers,” political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin observed.
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