A new pluralism

There you have it. As I blogged last week, Dmitry Medvedev seems to have moved towards the reintroduction of direct gubernatorial elections. At least, this is what the President's latest statements suggest. Also, the effective removal of Valentina Matvienko from the position of St. Petersburg governor seems to confirm the idea that a thorough (if only virtual) revamp of the system of the regional administration is planned. Matviyenko's dismissal has been cooking for some time now (for the exact same reasons as in the case of Yuriy Luzhkov and Georgy Boos), but she was apparently more clever than the former Moscow mayor, and - after some "waffling" - accepted a position that is officially higher than her previous one (and which, without any doubts, has been offered to Luzhkov as well). There are still a lot of questions unanswered - including that of the person who will take over Matvienko's seat in August - but the way that Medvedev seems to be going is clear, and this can only indicate that the President is slowly but surely forming his electoral programme.

Genius loci

After a long pre-summer recess, I finally have the time to react on the St. Petersburg Economic Forum and especially on the speech given by Dmitry Medvedev. The President's intervention lasted slightly more than 30 minutes, contrary to the much hyped press conference in May that stretched on for more than 2 hours. Yet, I dare to say, this speech was the strongest indication so far that Medvedev wants to retain power and he is willing to give the ruling elite tangible reasons why he should be the candidate next year. It was also an important contribution to the debate about the the revamp of the Russian political and economic system, a notion that Medvedev pretty much seems to have embarked on and will make it the core of his campaign. In the following paragraphs, I'll try to argue why the St. Petersburg speech had a considerable significance in view of the forthcoming elections and what it has to do with some other exciting analytic material Russia-watchers could lay their hands on during the last couple of weeks.