US leans towards Medvedev

The Moscow News

No US official has explicitly backed President Dmitry Medvedev for re-election in 2012, but US Vice President Joe Biden came within a hair’s breadth of giving Medvedev his endorsement in preference to Vladimir Putin in a series of blunt messages during his visit to Moscow last week.

Biden, who met with both the president and prime minister, reportedly suggested to a group of opposition leaders that Putin – who many believe still wields the reins of power after stepping down in 2008 – should not run for a third term.

He also said, according to the oppositionists, that when he looked into Putin’s eyes during their Thursday meeting, he found “no soul” there.

“I will not go into deciphering the expression on Biden’s face,” Right Cause leader Leonid Gozman told The Moscow News, “But he said that, and he said it on the record. He was asked during the meeting whether that remark was on the record or off the record, whether he could be quoted, and he told everyone yes.”

Writing on his LiveJournal blog, Solidarity leader Boris Nemtsov cited Biden as saying that in Putin’s place, he wouldn’t run for president again because it was bad for the country and bad for him.

Asked about Biden’s remarks, Nemtsov said they were made for everyone to hear, but Biden had declined to elaborate further.

“He was interested in the technology of falsifying elections,” Nemtsov told The Moscow News.

Tense meeting

The remarks attributed to Biden were made less than an hour after his talks with Putin – and they appeared to underscore a tension in the first-time meeting, which Russian government officials otherwise described as positive and dynamic.

Sitting across the table from one another, a smiling but reserved Putin moved to disarm his colleague by suggesting it was time the two countries discuss a visa-free regime.

But Biden, who called it a “good idea”, made it clear that it was an issue for the country’s presidents – in what appeared to be thinly-veiled jab at Putin’s formally subordinate role to President Medvedev.

“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a big difference between being president and being vice-president,” Biden said.

Putin responded with a cold glare as Biden continued about the progress achieved in relations during the Obama administration.

Biden seemed to be making even a clearer bet on Medvedev during his speech at Moscow State University later that evening, alluding to the politically-motivated trial of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the death in detention of Hermitage lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

“No amount of government cheerleading or public relations or US support or rebranding will bring wronged or nervous investors back to a market they perceive to have these shortcomings,” he said, according to a transcript of the speech from the official White House website.

But he clearly expressed faith that Medvedev could right the wrongs.

“Mr. Medvedev said last week — and I quote him — ‘Freedom cannot be postponed. Joe Biden didn’t say that. The president of Russia said that. And when Deputy Premier and Finance Minister Kudrin said that ‘only fair elections can give the authorities the mandate of trust we need to help economic reforms’ — that’s a Russian leader, not an American leader.”

Misreading the tandem?

Neither Putin nor Medvedev have given a clear answer about their presidential ambitious, saying only that they will talk and decide together which one of them should run.

And Michael McFaul, senior director for Russia at the US National Security Council, denied that Biden came to Moscow to give Washington’s view on Russia’s 2012 presidential election – as some Russian media alleged ahead of the trip.

It would be wrong to say that the US could play a role in approving this or that candidate, and it will not do it, Interfax quoted McFaul as saying.

But if Washington is staking on Medvedev and his modernisation programme as the more “democratic” member of the ruling tandem ahead of the election, then that contradicts an equally clear understanding in Washington that Medvedev must have the approval, if not the permission, of his mentor for his policies.

Medvedev, like Putin before him, did not take part in election debates after being endorsed by Putin for the presidency in 2008. And his approval ratings, experts say, are equal to Putin’s because they are a function of them.

Owing so much of his political clout to his predecessor, who wields considerable influence as prime minister, on his own Medvedev could become vulnerable to various interest groups were Putin to step aside entirely in 2012, some experts said.

Oligarchic system

His economic modernisation, while sincere, could be interpreted by oligarchic clans as a way to get their clout back, Stephen Cohen, a Soviet expert and historian at New York University, told The Moscow News in a recent interview.

“That is why people are gravitating towards Medvedev. They also like his rhetoric. But when they hear ‘no modernisation without democratisation’ they don’t give it the same meaning that you and I do. They have another concept in their heads.”

Cohen added that it was unlikely for Russia to see truly free elections while the oligarchic system was still in place.

Washington’s implicit “wager on Medvedev is a big mistake. It has undercut Medvedev in Moscow. And if this reset fails, it will take Medvedev down with it,” he said. unshaven girl займ на карту https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php zp-pdl.com hairy girl