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MONDAY, MAY 16, 2011
opinion
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Russian movement could boost Putin, weaken Medvedev By Gleb Bryanski plan by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to launch a new political movement is likely to strengthen his power base at the expense of President Dmitry Medvedev in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. Putin and Medvedev have avoided saying which of them will run in the March 2012 vote, but the prime minister is creating the People’s Front to broaden the base of his ruling party and increase support before a parliamentary election in December. Putin said on Thursday Medvedev had supported the initiative but, when asked about the plan, the president made no attempt to give the movement a ringing endorsement and indicated he would not join it. Medvedev and Putin have also differed in recent weeks on issues such as Libya and the fate of jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, causing speculation that both want to run in 2012 and a rift is opening between them. “Putin will tell Medvedev: ‘The People’s Front is behind me, and who is behind you then?’ It will be difficult for Medvedev to beat that,” political observer Yulia Latynina wrote in the Novaya Gazeta daily newspaper. Both leaders’ aides have dismissed suggestions of a rift, and political analysts caution that the two leaders’ public comments could be part of a carefully orchestrated campaign that conceals the leadership’s true intentions. But a former Kremlin adviser who supports Medvedev has criticised Putin’s plan, which he announced this month, to create a movement grouping labour unions, veterans and youth groups around his United Russia party. “There is no place for Medvedev in the All-Russia People’s Front,” Gleb Pavlovsky, who lost his job this month after breaking a taboo by openly backing Medvedev for a second term, said in an interview with the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta. “It looks like an attempt to push Medvedev aside from playing an active role in the parliamentary election,” he said, looking ahead to the December poll in which a strong showing by the new movement would underline Putin’s leadership credentials. Igor Yurgens, an outspoken Medvedev loyalist who heads a think tank patronised by the president, has called Putin’s initiative “absolute nonsense”. He has also said Putin should bow out of the presidential race. The question of who is Russia’s next president could determine whether Russia embarks on reforms to modernise its $1.5 trillion economy or stagnates, economic analysts say. Some investors say it makes little difference which of the two is president because Putin has remained the most powerful figure even though he stepped aside as president in 2008 because the constitution prevented him seeking a third straight term. But other investors say privately that Medvedev, who is considered more liberal than Putin, would be more likely to carry out the reforms needed to shake up what the International Monetary Fund ranks as the world’s 11th biggest economy. Although a decision on which of them will run is not expected until September at the earliest, Putin is laying the platform for a presidential campaign if he decides he wants to return to a post he held from 2000 until 2008. United Russia has a two-thirds majority in the lower house of parliament but opinion polls show its approval ratings have fallen. It had 55 percent support in April, according to the Levada research group, compared with 62 percent last October. “This is an attempt to mobilise voters under the banner of Vladimir Putin ahead of the parliamentary election,” said political analyst Pavel Salin. He said the creation of a new movement would help Putin, who remains Russia’s most popular politician, distance himself from United Russia which has been increasingly associated with corruption and bureaucracy. “The United Russia name has become a burden. Some politicians are trying to conceal their membership,” said public activist Alexei Navalny who drove an Internet campaign against United Russia calling it “a party of swindlers and thieves”. The parliamentary election is expected to show whether most Russians are happy with the status quo or are ready for gradual change. A dominant showing by Putin’s new movement would offer a strong platform for him in the presidential election because it will be closely associated with him personally. “If Putin wins the parliamentary election by a landslide it will be a serious claim (to run in 2012),” said political scientist Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a United Russia member. Success for Putin’s movement would underline the failure of an attempt last month to mobilise more liberal voters behind Medvedev in a resurrected centre-right party. Officials invited to lead the party declined to take the risk. The creation of the People’s Front also appears to end an experiment with a dual-party system involving the Just Russia party created before the 2007 parliamentary election. —Reuters
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Lee steps down, but not full break with past By Raju Gopalakrishnan or most Singaporeans, it’s inconceivable that the government doesn’t have Lee Kuan Yew at the helm or very near it. That break with the past came sooner than expected at the weekend with the announcement that Lee, 87, had relinquished the reverential title of “minister mentor” and stepped down from active politics after more than half a century at the very top. No one is predicting that Lee’s exit will bring a shake-up of the tightly managed political system that helped turn Singapore from an economic backwater at independence in 1965 to a roaring success and moulded it into a world-class financial hub. Rather, there was a sense that the bluntspeaking Lee, with his impatience of dissent, was out of touch with the mood and expectations of the people of Singapore, and it was time to move on. That was underlined in this month’s general election, which the ruling party won but with its most dismal performance since independence in 1965. Lee remains a member of parliament and his son is prime minister but he said on Saturday that he and Goh Chok Tong, another former prime minister, were stepping down from the cabinet to allow “a younger generation to carry Singapore forward in a more difficult and complex situation”. “A younger generation, besides having a noncorrupt and meritocratic government and a high standard of living, wants to be more engaged in the decisions which affect them,” the statement said. Lee has been the omnipotent leader of Singapore, as flag-bearer of independence, as prime minister of the republic for 25 years and later another 21 years in the cabinet as senior minister and then as minister mentor. But his attitude - he once said: “We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think” - is increasingly perceived as behind the times. “The old way of doing things was increasingly being seen as anachronistic, and being out of touch or even being seen as dictatorial,” said Eugene Tan, assistant professor at the Singapore Management University. “And so I think it is a break from the past.” Some of Lee’s comments may have cost the PAP votes at the election, other commentators have said. He said during the campaign that if a constituency voted for the opposition the voters would have “five years to repent”. Lee was unopposed in his constituency in the May 7 general election but the PAP returned to power with only about 60 percent of the popular vote, the lowest since independence in 1965. His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said after the election: “Many (Singaporeans) wish for the government to adopt a different style and approach. It marks a distinct shift in our political landscape.” He has not taken a decision on the resignations of Goh and his father, but should finalise the new cabinet early this week, media reports said. The Straits Times, the city’s main newspaper which usually reflects government thinking, said in an analysis yesterday that when Lee Kuan Yew took over, the nation “had yet to learn to read and write, far less to create jobs”. “Close engagement of the mass citizenry was not only un-necessary but would have been a non-starter.” Now, the newspaper said, “there is not only an implicit acknowledgement that their styles may no longer be in sync with the expectations of a younger generation, but that they may also no longer have an instinctive sense of the ground.” Still, there is no question Lee’s policies, which have brought surging economic growth and a place among the richest nations in the world, will continue to guide Singapore for decades, analysts said. Any changes are likely to be only at the margins. “In terms of policy substance, strategic direc-
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tions, I don’t think there will be change,” said Tan at Singapore Management University. “I think we will see change in the form of government in terms of how policies are packaged, how they are presented, how they are communicated, implemented, how people are consulted. “We will see the imprint becoming more and more faint but I think it wouldn’t do Singapore and Singaporeans good for there to be radical changes.” And while there will be political inclusiveness, there is unlikely to be complete tolerance of dissent, he added. “We can certainly expect the government to be a lot more responsive, to pay more attention, to get more buy-in rather than trying to dictate to the people,” Tan said. “I think we will see dissent being tolerated more, we will see the avenues for political expression being widened but like it or not, community interest will still take priority over individual interest.” — Reuters
This photo taken on April 27, 2011 shows Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew waving to his supporters upon arrival at a nomination centre in Singapore. – AFP Washington Watch
Obama speech shouldn’t ignore peace plan By Dr James J Zogby
few days back, the New York Times reported that President Obama was planning to deliver a major speech designed to “reset” US relations with the Arab World. I found the article troubling. According to “unnamed US officials” cited in the story, “Mr Obama was casting about for ways to tie together events in the Middle East [i.e. the Arab Spring and the killing of bin Laden] and that “the current plan is for the President to keep his focus on the broader changes in the Arab World, rather than to present a specific new plan for reviving the [Israeli-Palestinian] peace talks”. All I can say is I sure hope the New York Times got the story wrong. I believe that most Arabs are not looking to the United States to “sprinkle holy water” on their Arab Spring (with Libyans being the singular exception). Nor do they need help in understanding the significance of, or the consequences of, this moment in their history. Arabs are not looking to the US President for an analysis of their circumstances. While what they want from America may differ in some details from country to country, a core concern shared by most Arabs is that America demonstrates leadership in resolving the Palestinian issue. In anticipation of Obama’s speech, I have been asking a wide range of Arab friends and acquaintances, from revolutionaries and intellectuals to government officials, what they want to hear from the US President. While offering a diverse menu of issues (Libyans want arms, Egyptians and Tunisians want economic assistance and investment to create needed employment, etc), two strong points of consensus emerge regarding the issues they hope Obama will address. On the one hand, these Arab interlocutors make clear that the US is still paying a price for Bush era policies, and that President Obama is still suffering from a “post-Cairo speech” let down. That speech raised expectations which were not fulfilled, shaking confidence in US leadership. Therefore, they caution against another “big speech” that promises a lot and delivers too little. And because the headline leading up to the 2009 Cairo University speech and then coming out of that speech was the President’s commitment to resolve the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, failure to address this issue now, or to address it only in generalities or with more vague promises “to advance the peace process,” will either deepen mistrust or provoke scorn or rage. In recent days, the importance of the Palestinian issue has only been heightened by the resignation of former Senator George Mitchell and by what is expected to be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s triumphant appearance before the US Congress. While Mitchell’s much heralded appointment as Special Envoy raised hopes among some in the Middle East, his tenure has been disappointing. His departure is being viewed as an admission of a collapse of the process in which he and the President had invested a great deal of political capital. And with Netanyahu and Congress both in agreement on blocking the recently completed Palestinian reconciliation pact and the Palestinian leadership’s efforts to seek the United Nations’ recognition of their state in September, it would be viewed as a glaring omission and a lack of serious intent should Obama fail to address the issue of Palestine in whatever Middle
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East speech he is to give. Now, to be sure, there are voices here in the US maintaining that the Arab Spring has eclipsed Palestine and that Arabs now have bigger issues on their plate. They argue that Palestine was always nothing more than a diversion which Arab rulers used to distract their subjects - to redirect their anger away from home at Israel and the US With revolutions now underway in many parts of the Middle East, the removal of Osama bin Laden from the scene, and with Arabs concerned with Iran’s push for regional hegemony, these analysts say that it is these issues, not Palestine, that should be the topics dominating the President’s message. Of course any Presidential address on the Arab World today will have to comment on the changes underway, the killing of bin Laden, and regional concerns with extremism. But none of this can justify ignoring Palestine. It is not an either/or proposition. Our polling across the Arab World consistently demonstrates the importance of Palestine for Arabs from Morocco to the Arab Gulf. And the President, himself, knows that efforts to diminish the centrality of Palestine are wrong. Obama understands the importance of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in creating a more stable and secure Middle East and in improving US standing in the Arab World. That is why he invested so heavily in efforts to address the issue and that is why he has repeatedly and publicly made the case for the importance that this matter holds for US national security interests in the region. That his peace-making efforts have been stymied by circumstances beyond his control is unfortunate, but to advise him to surrender to these circumstances at this point would be a tragic mistake. He cannot, of course, make peace by himself. And he must always be attentive to the domestic political consequences of any actions he may attempt. But even with these constraints, there are things he can do in a speech that would demonstrate leadership at this critical time. The President can make clear in a speech the parameters of what would constitute a just solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Building on the Taba framework, which was nearly completed by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators in 2000, and the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, the President can put forward an Obama Plan. But he must go further by laying down firm markers for behavior and binding timetables for implementation, backed up by US commitments as incentives and the threat to withhold political support as a sanction. He then must sell this framework to the American public, the world community and especially to Arabs and Israelis. To do all this will be difficult and will take leadership and determination. But no one should ever have expected that undoing years of neglect, entitlement, or bad behavior would be easy. If we want to be serious and be seen as serious, the issue must be tackled head on. To do anything less, would be a mistake. If the Times story is right and ignoring Palestine or downplaying this issue is what is being contemplated, then I would respectfully suggest skipping the speech entirely. Rather than appearing insensitive and out of touch, earning scorn or worse, it would be better to do nothing at all. NOTE: Dr James J Zogby is the President of the Arab American Institute.