The Kremlin’s chosen candidate Dmitry Medvedev will win Russia’s presidential election. That is almost certain. It is certain too that he will face no serious competition. Why? The reason - or at least a big part of it - was on display two weeks ago at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.

In the departure lounge a group of about 10 people in their twenties was sipping champagne as they waited to board their flight. It was just after 9:00 a.m. and they had already polished off 7 bottles.

Russians’ penchant for drink is nothing new. It is not unusual to board an early-morning flight and be hit by a wall of vodka fumes. Some anxious flyers take a drink to ease their nerves.

What is new is that young, middle-class professionals like the group at the airport have the money to upgrade from vodka to champagne. And they were drinking the French stuff, not the ersatz “shampanskoye” made in Russia.

This economic feel-good factor is at the heart of Medvedev’s almost-inevitable victory in the March 2 election.

As President Vladimir Putin’s protégé, he is the heir to a system which Russians credit with overseeing the biggest boom in a generation.

Nearly everyone has seen their incomes rise.  Data from the state statistics service showed wages earned by Russians in December last year rose 30 percent against the same period in 2006. The average monthly wage is now around $530.

And Russians believe the good times will keep rolling. A survey by the Levada Centre pollster showed that 82 percent of Russians believed the economy would either grow stronger or stay as it is in the medium term, against only 14 percent who expected it would deteriorate.

The result of all this is that, come election time, Russians feel no need to change a team that has brought them relative prosperity.

There are, of course, clouds on the horizon. Some economists say inflation is in danger of getting out of control, and that it will only take a drop in the world oil price for the Russian economy to crash.

Opposition parties say behind the glitzy economic boom, the Kremlin is monopolising power and destroying democracy.

For many of the Russians I speak to, all that is a concern, but not for now. Asked what he thought about the Kremlin’s treatment of human rights and democratic freedoms, a Russian analyst with a major Western investment bank told me: “I don’t care about any of that stuff. It doesn’t affect my life.”

“How do you read this?” An agitated neighbour dropped in on me late last night to ask about a top Russian official’s surprise suggestion that Russia’s hawkish, anti-Western foreign policy should be “adjusted” because it could damage investment.

In a country where top officials normally never disagree in public on policy, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s remark at an investment conference was something of a bombshell.

Kudrin did not expand on his cautious remark. A fellow government liberal, state electricity chief Anatoly Chubais, went a bit further. He suggested that moves like a recent ban on regional offices of the British Council did not help to improve Russia’s image abroad.

But analysts were fast to link the words by Kudrin, an ally of President Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor Dmitry Medvedev, to the March 2 presidential election.
“There is no doubt there is a non-stop under-the-carpet struggle being waged in the Kremlin now with (hardliners) trying to attack the group associated with Dmitry Medvedev,” said Dmitry Oreshkin, head of independent think-tank Mercator. “Kudrin’s remarks are a clear message to the West that Medvedev needs protection.”

The conversation with my neighbour suddenly revived memories of the early days of Soviet Perestroika reform in 1985-86, when then Kremlin leader Mikhail Gorbachev fought hardline rivals in the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo.
In public speeches, both sides worked hard to deny the existence of any split in the leadership and stressed their unity over the principles of Communism. But Russians, taught to read carefully between the lines, always tried to guess who was on top every day by reading newspaper editorials.
When front pages covered articles by liberal Central Committee member Alexander Yakovlev defending the virtues of “socialist pluralism” and “peaceful coexistence with the West”, the liberals rejoiced. When Politburo member Yegor Ligachev attacked “renegades” and urged uncompromising adherence to “party principles”, it was the day of the hardliners.

Twenty years on the secretive Soviet-style atmosphere is back ahead of Russia’s presidential succession.

Putin has said he sees the main point of the March 2 polls as ensuring a continuation of his course, which many Russians believe helped to revive the nation’s prosperity and self-confidence after the turmoil of the first post-Soviet decade.

Technically, there is no problem. According to the latest opinion polls, Medvedev’s popularity, helped by generous Kremlin support and ample airtime on state media, has rocketed to 70 percent, nearly 10 times more than his nearest rival.

The other big task - to preserve the image of unity in the Kremlin ranks - is more tricky.
Officially, there are no clans or political factions in Putin’s entourage.
“We are friends and allies,” Medvedev has said.
But the truth is hard to conceal. Recent events have shown that faction-fighting exists and Russians are learning again to read between the lines.

Medvedev’s anointing as Putin’s chosen successor against expectations that he would choose a tougher ally, First Deputy Prime Minister and former Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, was viewed as a defeat for the hawks’ camp. Their leading members have all but disappeared from public radars.

But did this mean a victory for liberals, with whom Medvedev is associated, or simply a manoeuvre to install a weaker leader who is easier for Putin to manage?

Almost anything which happens in Russia nowdays is carefully scrutinised for possible clues indicating what is going on inside the corridors of power. Kremlinologists, after a brief period of unemployment in the more open Yeltsin era, are now back in demand.

A few examples:

– the Pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi, which has revived memories of the Soviet-era Young Communists League, says it will stop running big campaigns. Since many of them were anti-Western and anti-liberal, Kremlin liberals score one point.
– Russia launches navy exercises in the Atlantic, unseen since the Soviet days, and resumes patrols by strategic bombers? Hardliners score.

–Information is leaked that Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, personally loyal to Putin, will become chairman of the board of gas giant Gazprom. The move, which will clearly reduce the influence of a future president Medvedev, is immediately interpreted as a confirmation of the theory that Putin wants a weak leader he can control.

“Watching all this is real fun,” our neighbour concluded our conversation. “But I would prefer more clarity from the top. I am not saying a right for us to decide, just more clarity.”

Dmitry Medvedev, the Kremlin-backed frontrunner of the Russian presidential polls, has declared war on supermarket chains saying they were to blame for the fact that billions of dollars invested by the Kremlin in the agricultural sector have failed to translate into cheaper and better food for Russians.

“They are taking such high bribes for selling agricultural products in their shops that domestic producers of milk and cheese find it pointless to sell,” he said on a campaign trip on Saturday to a farm outside his home town of St Petersburg. “As a result people, forced to drink powder milk, suffer.”

“We will take them to task,” Medvedev promised after visiting a farm near his and President Vladimir Putin’s home town of St Petersburg, on Saturday adding that the government will take prices under tough control.

Food prices, which have started growing especially fast last year, has turned into a major political factor ahead of March 2 polls. Official inflation hit nearly 12 percent in 2007, two percentage points higher than was initially planned, but anyone who goes to Russian shops was sure to notice that the real figure is much higher.

Worries about the growing cost of a food basket has topped in the latest opinion polls traditional favourites — the Russians’ concerns about security and jobs.

The food prices issue is not fatal for Medvedev, whose ratings soared to over 60 percent after popular President backed him as a preferred successor in December.

But it could sour his image of a successful manager, who has for over two years national priority projects launched to translate swelling budget revenues into better education, housing, health services and agriculture.

“Price rises are Medvedev’s main priority project,” said an official campaign slogan of the Communist Party, whose leader Gennady Zyuganov gears to stand against Medvedev in the presidential election. (http://kprf.ru/actions/54520.html  )

Since the Soviet times, the agricultural sector has been a black hole where state funds disappeared for decades without producing any visible effect. Things went even worse in the first post-Soviet decade, when the outdated Soviet-era agricultural sector collapsed completely.

The situation has considerably improved under Putin, when the state backed by strong revenues from oil and gas export managed to allocate funds for the agricultural sector.

As a part of the priority projects, the state has pumped over 152 billion roubles ($6 billion) in agriculture in 2006-07 as credits for domestic producers.

“We have managed to achieve some progress in the past two years,” Medvedev said during a meeting with regional officials.

But the soaring prices, which force the majority of Russians to tighten their belts, sours the rosy picture.

The potential effect of growing food prices may be even stronger now that Medvedev has clearly focused his election campaign on promises to make Russia’s future course more oriented towards ensuring the people’s well-being.

He has already promised to review the system of pension to end the current situation when old people are left with less than $100 a month after retirement and improve the environment protection.

PENZA, Russia -  To an outsider, there are many strange things about the way Kremlin-backed contender Dmitry Medvedev runs his presidential campaign.

To start with, there is no campaign — at least in the sense it is understood in most of the world. No debates with opponents, no appeals to voters, no posters, no “Vote Medvedev” badges.

Instead, during the past couple of weeks, Medvedev has made several regional trips and accompanied President Vladimir Putin last Wednesday on a visit to the city of Penza some 700 km (400 miles) east of Moscow. He made a speech at a meeting with Russia’s intellectual elite last Tuesday laying out some of his big ideas.

These may look to some like campaign stops but officials say none of them is considered part of his campaign. In fact Russia’s presidential election campaign only officially starts on Feb.2.

“Dmitry Anatolyevich is not making campaign trips, ” his spokeswoman Zhanna Odintsova said after the Penza visit, as the Medvedev team prepared to head to the central Russian city of Voronezh. “He has not taken campaign leave (from his post) and all his tours are business trips.”

The double act staged by Putin and Medvedev in Penza certainly did not look like a  campaign trip.

Like Putin, Medvedev flew on a government plane and dozens of Kremlin officials helped to organise the logistics. Local officials lined up to enjoy the privilege of meeting the candidate and police blocked city streets to allow the smooth passage of his convoy.

The issue of whether or not this was a campaign trip was not one which bothered  Russian television. State-controlled channels lavishly covered the Penza visit, giving Medvedev the image of a man too busy to get involved in trivia such as a campaign, yet mature enough to match the popular Putin.

In Penza, the two men inaugurated a new heart hospital built as part of the government’s priority national projects, which are designed to translate swelling state revenues into better education, medical care, housing and agriculture. The projects are headed by Medvedev and are viewed as his strongest political asset.

Politically, a “no campaign” style is viewed by his minders as best for Medvedev. He is positioning himself as a natural successor to Putin and has his mentor’s strong backing. According to opinion polls last year, more than half of voters were ready to back whoever Putin anointed and Medvedev’s popularity ratings are already above 60 percent. One poll this week said 82 percent of voters who have already made up their minds would choose him.

Russia’s election laws strictly limit the size and sources of election funds and forbid the use advantages given by office during the campaign. The law strongly advises candidates to take campaign leaves from their posts to avoid clashes of interest.

The election laws also toughly regulate media access and advertising rules for candidates to even out their chances. Critics have complained that Medvedev’s appearances so far contravene these regulations.

Another opposition complaint concerns media coverage. Every detail of Medvedev’s visits to the provinces is uncritically covered by state-run television channels as a top story, while his opponents struggle to get any airtime at all.

Election officials so far say they see no problem. Attempts by political rivals to challenge in court similar state support to the Kremlin-backed party United Russia in last month’s parliamentary elections have failed.

“It would be a violation if, say, candidate Medvedev used the government airplane to make a campaign trip,” one senior election official has said. “But there is nothing wrong about First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev touring Russia and meeting people.”

The outcome of Russia’s presidential election has never been in doubt.

Right from the moment that President Vladimir Putin named his close ally Dmitry Medvedev as his preferred successor, Kremlin-watchers have assumed he will win a handsome electoral victory next March and take office.

But the latest talk in Moscow suggests it may prove hard for the Kremlin even to pretend that a real contest has taken place.

Leading opposition candidate Gennady Zyuganov — a veteran Communist — is considering dropping out in protest against slanted media coverage, according to reports here. Zyuganov, who is currently touring China, has not commented but his reluctance to stand may have something to do with polls showing his support running at under 10 percent — well below the 15-20 percent levels recorded by his party.

And Mikhail Kasyanov — the main flag-carrier for the liberal opposition here — risks being disqualified. Officials say it appears that some of the 2 million signatures he was required to collect from all over Russia in support of his independent presidential bid were forged. The electoral commission will decide on Kasyanov’s candidacy by the end of the month.

Wags have suggested that if the Kremlin has any sense, it will let the former premier stand: his current support in opinion polls is around one percent.

If neither stands, Medvedev will face as his main opponent Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a nationalist firebrand best known for his outspoken rants against foreigners — and his loyal support for the Kremlin.

Zhirinovsky’s LDPR party polled a mighty 8 percent in last month’s parliamentary elections, so its leader can hardly be called a threat to Medvedev.

And let’s not forget the other remaining opposition candidate — Andrei Bogdanov. Few Russians had heard of Bogdanov before he registered his candidacy and not many more have heard of him since. His Democratic Party picked up just 90,000 votes nationwide in the parliamentary elections, so it remains something of a mystery how he managed within the stipulated one month to find 2 million signatures from across this vast country in support of his independent presidential bid. His support in opinion polls has been measured in fractions of a percentage point.

The way in which Bogdanov became head of his party could provide some clues as to how much of a challenge he is to Medvedev. In December 2005, Kasyanov was on course to become the leader of Democratic Party. He and his supporters made their way to the conference venue in Moscow where he was due to be elected leader. But when they got there, their path was blocked by a crowd of protesters. The party congress went ahead without Kasyanov and dozens of delegates, and elected Bogdanov as leader instead. Some observers speculated that Bogdanov may have acted in concert with Kremlin insiders to frustrate Kasyanov’s political ambitions.

The Kremlin is keen to ensure Medvedev wins an election which at least looks like a contest, so some commentators here believe Zyuganov will not be allowed to drop his candidacy — it would just be too embarrassing.

The right address really matters in Russian politics. You need to be in the Kremlin, or as close as possible. From that point of view, Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin’s preferred candidate in the March 2 election, has won the best possible location for his campaign staff. According to the daily Vedemosti, dozens of Medvedev’s aides will move into 8, Staraya Ploshchad - an official buildings just a mile from the Kremlin’s red-brick walls.

Originally a hotel built in 1902 by renowned architect Fyodor Shekhtel, the building became part of an office compound occupied by ruling bodies of the Soviet Communist party. In Soviet days, the expression “Staraya Ploshchad” (”Old Square” in Russian) was as widely used as “the Kremlin” when referring to the national leadership.

The geographical location of Medvedev’s staff is part of a broader plan to boost the image of a man already heavily engaged in ruling the country. It should play well with Russians.

According to a survey by state-run pollster VTsIOM last Friday, 48 percent want the next president to be a “true father of the nation”, while another 42 percent said he should be an experienced manager. The symbolism of Staraya Ploshchad meets the expectations of both groups.

The location of Medvedev’s campaign staff is part of a plan to present him as a man trusted by Putin to continue with his policies - something wanted by many Russians worried that the presidential succession might disrupt the country’s biggest economic boom in a generation.

At the same time, there are growing signs that the campaign will be a carefully controlled operation run tightly by the Kremlin, rather than a conventional campaign.

— In an unprecedented decision, Putin has delegated Kremlin chief of staff Sergei Sobyanin to head Medvedev’s campaign. The gesture shows that Putin is handing over his top people to his successor but at the same time analysts have noted that it will give Putin strong control over Medvedev, at least in the initial stages of his administration.

— Trying to position himself as a statesman above the political fray, Medvedev has refused to take part in debates with other candidates. Instead, he will use high-profile venues before selected audiences to deliver campaign speeches.

— Kremlin officials have said outdoor campaign advertisements will be reduced to a minimum. “Rolls-Royce does not need ads, it has a reputation,” one official commented.

The strategy may be unconventional in Western terms but it seems to be working.

According to the latest VTsIOM poll published on Tuesday, 60.4 percent of respondents would vote for Medvedev - way ahead of nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky (7.5 percent) and Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov (6.1 percent). Medvedev’s ratings have grown by nearly 8 percent in a week.

READING THE KREMLIN BODY LANGUAGE

President Vladimir Putin’s chosen successor Dmitry Medvedev made his first foreign trip last week since launching his election campaign, accompanying his mentor on a trip to Bulgaria which provided a few clues about the likely next Russian president’s style and character. Our Kremlin correspondent Oleg Shchedrov, who travelled to Bulgaria to cover the trip, reports:

“Shoot them, forget the rest!”, cried the producer of a major Russian broadcaster to his cameraman, during a solemn signing ceremony in Sofia’s presidential palace. He was referring to a timid, curly-haired man who was nearing Putin to whisper something into his ear. In a moment, dozens of top officials and reporters were staring at the two, giggling like fans who unexpectedly ran into a pop star.

Putin remained calm. But Medvedev, a first deputy prime minister who — barring a major upset — will take over from him as president of Russia later this year, blushed like a teenager. He was evidently embarrassed at drawing the media attention away from his boss and mentor, just as Putin was signing an important official document.

There was a good excuse for the odd behaviour of the audience at the key event of Putin’s state visit to Bulgaria on Friday. Less than two months before Russia’s March 2 presidential election very little is known about the 41-year-old former St Petersburg lawyer destined to win the vote after the Kremlin leader picked him as a preferred successor.

Is Medvedev planning to stay long in the Kremlin or he is just a stand-in until Putin decides to come back? Is he a loyal pupil, who will obediently stick to Putin’s legacy after replacing him, or a man with a mind of his own, who might surprise his backers by charting his own course after taking office as Putin did himself eight years ago?

There is no clear answer to these questions and no hope of getting one in a country where the Western-style open political struggles of the 1990s have been replaced by Byzantine Kremlin acts in which every gesture, every word are carefully crafted to produce a needed effect and in which unauthorised leaks of information have been systematically eradicated.

So it’s no wonder that Russia-watchers are scrutinising tiny details of scenarios, body language and words used by participants to try and read the tea leaves.

Putin’s first joint trip with Medvedev after the latter had launched his election campaign, and perhaps the last foreign visit by the incumbent Kremlin leader was a typical example.

To start with, there was no doubt about the message Putin intended to give by taking his preferred successor to Sofia. “Putin introduces Medvedev to the business,” Andrei Kolesnikov, the doyen of the Kremlin press corps, headlined his front page article in the Kommersant newspaper on Saturday.

Soon after the blushing incident, Putin deliberately called Medvedev to him asking for a pen. “It looks like, the president wanted to demonstrate that he cannot do without Medvedev even in minor things,” was Kolesnikov’s verdict.

Their choice of country to visit was also unmistakeable. Bulgaria is perhaps the friendliest of all Moscow’s former Warsaw Pact allies. Although now a NATO and EU member, Bulgaria retains many positive memories of Russia, including its liberation from the Ottoman rule by Russian troops in 1878. Many Bulgarian leaders speak Russian, which is linguistically very close.

In a further Putin gesture demonstrating Medvedev’s special importance, Medvedev had separate meetings arranged with Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, rather than attending their meetings with Putin.

The foreign media in the Kremlin pool was kept at bay from the Medvedev meetings, but one of the Russian members who attended them said Medvedev showed himself to be a good communicator, relaxed and not averse to humour - something which has become one of Putin’s strengths in the final years of his rule.

“There was a bit of confusion, when an official translator tried to help Medvedev and Stanishev, who speaks perfect Russian, at the beginning of their meeting,” she said. “Why don’t we just talk to each other,” Medvedev asked Stanishev with a soft smile, breaking the protocol.

As opposed to Putin’s early appearances, where his KGB past and lack of experience of public communications were evident - for example when he pledged to “smash Chechen guerrillas in a loo”, Medvedev tries to charm his opposite number with a soft style which is natural given his background as a lawyer.

“He looked really nice and refined,” commented a lady from the Kremlin press pool of Medvedev’s performance with Stanishev.

Medvedev’s blushing can be explained by his lack of public experience after spending eight years in Putin’s shadow — despite enjoying what his boss described as a “feeling of comradeship”.

After all, on his first foreign trip to Britain in April 2000 Putin himself went red at a news conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair when asked by reporter an uncomfortable question about the war in Chechnya he was waging at the time. A bit of training by PR aides and growing self-confidence solved the problem soon afterwards.

Unlike another close Putin aide, Sergei Ivanov, who was himself viewed until the last moment as another possible choice for the preferred successor, Medvedev behaves in a low-key way in the presence of his boss.

During the signing ceremony and a subsequent news conference - the only two events where they turned up together - Medvedev stood separately from other officials of the delegation, but still at a distance from Putin, with his eyes looking down at his boots.

“A perfect icon of a modest disciple,” murmured one reporter sitting nearby.

Picture credit: REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov