Medvedev criticised for not supporting Putin

VLADIMIR PUTIN’s election campaign manager has chided Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for not giving his ally enough support, and brushed off criticism of a decision to ban a liberal opposition leader from running in the March 4th ballot.

“I have a feeling that he is . . . well, keeping mum,” Stanislav Govorukhin, a film director who Mr Putin appointed as his campaign boss, said of Mr Medvedev.

“I think it would be more proper if he actively joined campaigning for the man he has nominated for president,” he added.

“I’m not seeing him playing any active role, and I find it strange because it was he who first proposed Putin’s candidacy for president.”

When a constitutional limit forced Mr Putin to leave the Kremlin in 2008, he selected his old friend and ally Mr Medvedev to succeed him.

Last September, Mr Medvedev nominated Mr Putin as the ruling party’s candidate to return to the Kremlin for a possible further 12 years.

In turn, Mr Putin said he would choose Mr Medvedev to be prime minister if he won the March election, but a surge in public discontent with the ruling elite and a series of big street protests since December’s general election have put that deal in doubt.

Mr Medvedev has in recent weeks been far less prominent in the media than previously, but Mr Putin’s spokesman was quick yesterday to quash rumours of a rift between the men.

Dmitry Peskov said Mr Medvedev had given Mr Putin “exhaustive support”, and he stressed that “both the president and prime minister are involved in concrete matters on a daily basis, and their concrete results support the presidential candidate Putin”.

Mr Govorukhin’s attack on Mr Medvedev was very unusual in Russia’s strictly hierarchical political world, and may reveal how far the president’s stock has fallen since he agreed to a “job swap” that would return Mr Putin to the highest post in the land.

Mr Putin has already talked about reversing some of the reforms that Mr Medvedev made during a distinctly low-key four years in office, and analysts say he may not even get the premier’s post if public anger towards Russia’s ruling clique continues to bubble in the weeks ahead.

Despite a significant drop in poll ratings, Mr Putin is expected to easily win the election, but his team is determined to secure victory in the first round and so avoid a run-off that could undermine his legitimacy and provide further opportunity for big opposition protests.

In what critics saw as a move to push liberal votes to Kremlin-approved candidates, election officials yesterday banned veteran opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky from the ballot for allegedly using forged and copied signatures in his election-registration papers.

Mr Govorukhin dismissed talk of efforts to sideline Mr Yavlinsky, insisting that he was “not dangerous for anyone”.

“He is a good man, intelligent, charming; but he is not dangerous. He does not have that many supporters,” Mr Govorukhin said.