Strongman, The

this. Nor did he know for many months who the right substitute might be.
    Not the current prime minister, certainly. Whereas Boris Yeltsin had appointed Putin to that job in 1999 in order to position him to become president, Putin had appointed his most recent prime minister, Mikhail Fradkov, for precisely the opposite reason – to have a grey yes-man with no ambitions at the head of the government.
    There were two front-runners: Dmitry Medvedev had been first deputy prime minister since November 2005 and was seen as a ‘liberal’, with no obvious connections to the siloviki , while Sergei Ivanov, the former spy and defence minister, was promoted to the same rank – first deputy prime minister – on 15 February 2007, prompting speculation that he was a serious rival for the future presidency. I could tell from my dealings with senior officials that no one knew which of them to side with. Both men began forming their own loyal teams, including press secretaries, but the wisest functionaries kept aloof.
    As a result, people at all the top levels of government became immobilised, afraid of taking long-term decisions and unsure which of the possible candidates to support. The hesitation was palpable from the middle of 2007 through to the parliamentary election in December, and even beyond the presidential election on 2 March 2008. For a good year, the strongman’s dilemma left the country weak and irresolute.
    One thing was clear: no ordinary Russian – indeed no one below the top circle of power – would have the slightest say in who Russia’s next president would be. But it would take Putin months to work out how to do it. I am pretty sure he did not have a plan in place at the beginning of the year. It emerged – and evolved – over the months. I often asked my contacts in the Kremlin what was going on, and I am sure they were not dissembling when they told me they had no idea. Even Putin didn’t know.
    The situation gave rise to the rebirth of Kremlinology, long dead since the days when people like me used to pore over photographs of Politburo line-ups on Red Square, or count how many words Pravda dedicated to various up and coming Soviet leaders. It did not escape attention that in January 2007 Medvedev received a warm welcome for a relatively liberal-sounding speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, nor that it was just five days after accompanying Putin to Munich in February that Sergei Ivanov was promoted to the same rank as Medvedev.
    The new Kremlinologists, including those working in the Kremlin itself, fearful for their own futures, avidly debated the merits of the two contenders. Medvedev was seen as perhaps too liberal or weak (though, on the other hand, that might be exactly what Putin was looking for, to project a softer image abroad). Ivanov was a silovik , surely closer to Putin, who had promoted so many spies and military men in the past years … but then again, perhaps he was too strong, too much of his own man, too much of a threat. Might Putin even allow them to stand against each other, representing different facets of the establishment? Or would Putin finally change the rules and run for a third term?
    It was Ivanov who seemed to be being groomed for the top job, shown more often on television, travelling more often with Putin, haranguing the West in Putin-like tones. Opinion polls, to the extent that they could be believed, put Medvedev marginally ahead of him until June, when the ex-spy pulled ahead by about four points.
    Suddenly, on 12 September, Putin pulled off an excruciatingly bad piece of political theatre, in which the prime minister Mikhail Fradkov was shown on television walking into the president’s office and falling – metaphorically and rather clumsily – on his sword. ‘In view of the political processes going on at the moment,’ Fradkov mumbled, ‘I want you to have complete freedom in your decisions and appointments. So I want to take the initiative and free up the position of prime minister so that you have a free hand in configuring your cabinet as you see fit.’ That was code for: obviously I am not going to be the next president, so I will resign and let you appoint the person you want. (This was based on the assumption that Putin, like Yeltsin, would appoint his chosen heir as prime minister.)
    ‘I completely agree with you,’ said President Putin, pretending to have had no say in the cabal, and immediately appointed a new prime minister. But it