Putin’s Strategy of Dragging Things Out Failing as Far as Succession is Concerned, El Murid Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 1 – Because a ruler like Vladimir Putin cannot have a designated successor by definition – such a person inevitably becomes a threat – he has chosen to drag out the issue of succession as long as possible, Anatoly Nesmiyan says. But his favored approach is increasingly becoming unsustainable.

            Indeed, the Russian analyst who blogs under the screen name El Murid argues, the situation appears likely to be coming to a head in the next several months, given that Putin is clearly no longer able to control the agenda as he did earlier and others in the elite can see that is now the case (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5FC662C59357D).

            Consequently, they are getting nervous and considering what they must do to save themselves if not the regime itself, even as Putin almost certainly will try with ever less success to “continue the agony” by not indicating that he is about to leave or putting in place arrangements that will allow a new leader to emerge without revolutionary change.

            Putin does not have the option of an easy administrative transfer such as the one Boris Yeltsin did in his case – there are simultaneously too few and too many obvious candidates – or of moving toward a collective leadership via the State Council. Yugoslavia tried that, El Murid says, with disastrous consequences.

            That sets the stage for intensifying conflicts among elite groups, but the problems with such “wars” are obvious and well known. “In such wars, in the case of victory, you don’t acquire all that much, but in the case of defeat, you lose all or almost all which is one and the same thing.”

            As a result, the blogger says, elites try to avoid these until an extreme circumstance arises that leaves them with no choice – the death of a dictator or his increasingly weak position – even though the system in which they must operate, one that doesn’t make arrangements for transitions, makes any move potentially disastrous for those who take it and others as well.

            Putin may try various tactics such as floating rumors about his health, but these may be a way of testing his subordinates for loyalty rather than the occasion for a real transfer. But the more frequent such strategems are employed and the longer things go on, the more those near the center of power will conclude they have no choice but to begin to act.

            That is because waiting too long can be just as fatal as moving too quickly, El Murid says; and now, given Putin’s declining ability to control the agenda, ever more people in these groups are concluding they have to begin to act. The next few months may thus prove explosive, even if Putin continues to try to delay things to the calends.