Mr. Kudrin. Photo: RIAN

...and Mr.Prokhorov. Photo by Eugene Feldman (The Novaya Gazeta)

As the old Soviet joke had it about the opulent singer entering the stage, “Just walk, back and forth!” This is precisely the function that Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov now has. First the Kremlin taps him as the saviour of its failure of a party in Right Cause, then gave him the boot. Now Prokhorov is coming roaring back on his Yo-Mobil into big time Russian politics, and this time he is a presidential candidate. And even if he himself came up with this idea, no one believes in the pure and voluntary nature of his intent. What everyone in actuality believes is this is a combination brought forth by the Kremlin, so that “responsible fathers of the households” (copyright to Prokhorov) go from their “disgruntled urban strata” (copyright Surkov) and vote not for Zyuganov, Mironov or Yavlinsky, but for a new figure. Meanwhile, the logic is that the anti-Putin electorate is spread about and Vladimir Putin has a solid chance of winning without run-off.

Officially, Prokhorov is like a candidate from the right, and anything otherwise will unlikely be revealed. The authorities won’t, after all, ever register Alexei Navalny.

The authorities themselves are willing to also lean a bit to the right. This has to do with the rumours, now debunked, that First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, known in the government as a “liberal” (on Putin’s scale at least), would be appointed to replace Boris Gryzlov as speaker of the State Duma.
This might not be the last tribute to democracy’s being in style these days, but all the other sacrifices being made to the altar of the people’s untethering could be just as paltry. That is, of course, if Putin doesn’t get the idea to one up the West and opposition by, for example, releasing all the case volumes on the Katyn massacre or setting Mikhail Khodorkovsky free. Both scenarios, however, contradict the national leader’s view, one that he has pushed to the masses many times now, that the US State Department and Hillary Clinton personally are meddling in Russia’s affairs.

There are much more serious hints being made that Alexei Kudrin, the long-time keeper of liberal economic traditions, will be jumping into politics, and not through the higher levels of power, as was being arranged during talks for him to become the head of the Kremlin’s pet project Right Cause, but from the bottom up.

It’s quite obvious that the former finance minister and long-time candidate for prime minister could quietly wait out this era of turbulence while getting away every once and a while to read lectures. Moreover, he received moral satisfaction, as insiders say, from a phrase Putin pronounced at the Finance Ministry’s head quarters, something to the effect of “Whatever it is, do what Kudrin says.” After Russian Central Bank Chairman Sergei Ignatyev’s term is up in 2013, Kudrin could fairly easily take on the relatively independent and extremely influential post as head of the Bank of Russia, which is a tried-and-true path toward a happy retirement. But the country’s chief economic mind is much too ambitious, and now is most likely going to start constructing his own liberal, pro-business party, a party that has been AWOL since the Union of Right Forces committed suicide on the Russian political map.

Kudrin, in a certain sense, is the liberal’s last shot. The liberal movement has a pretty thin bench to work with, at least in the Chubais/Gaidar section. The epic failure of the Right Cause party was logical: liberal parties don’t flourish when kept in captivity. Therefore, building such a party make sense only if from the bottom up: slowly, arduously, aiming for a long-suffering return to politics and being willing to make alliances with organisations from the fledgling civil movement. What’s more, it is quite clear that Kudrin cannot join PARNAS: there are too many big names there as it is. So it’s understandable that The Union of Right Forces is going to be resurrected under Kudrin’s effigy. This could mean that the right and democratic electorate might be further split into pieces, and this, you have to admit, is one of the serious, inherent problems.

There’s another problem: is Alexei Kudrin, a veteran regional, and then federal, bureaucrat who has become a jack of all trades in the corridors of power and skilled at backroom manoeuvring, capable of building a public, pro-business party? Even if it’s not for the “enraged urbanites,” but for the nuclear liberal audience that may not be large, but is very true to its views? Looking for happiness in the love of the masses still won’t yield anything: what Russian loves a finance minister whose favourite words is “No”? God willing there’ll be success in working with educated, intelligent, active, but not necessarily adapted or urbanised people. This audience needs a different kind of charisma, one completely different from Putin’s or Navalny’s, and Kudrin has it, while he was given a shot of popularity among right circles due to his conflict with the president in September.

Furthermore, no Russian bureaucrat has ever caused such raw anger among Vladislav Surkov and his team as Kudrin has. Being able to do so comes from years of irreproachable service, so Kudrin has a chance.

To be blunt, changes are taking place on the right. How they will be configured and what they will address remains to be seen. It is also worth paying very close attention to how the situation will play out in the wide civil movement, where sooner or later the leftists and rightists will split into respective camps. But this is a matter of time and patience, both for the participants and for their electorates. The one thing that is obvious is that the political field will never be the same again.