Inside the Putin court: a research note

If the soviet system of government centred on the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, the Russian system has been based on the powerful executive presidency that was established by the 1993 Constitution. Given his relative obscurity before his appointment as prime minister in 1999, the world was understandably anxious to know ‘Who is Mister Putin?’ By the end of his first term of office, the outlines of an answer had become reasonably clear. Central authority would be vigorously reasserted; the Chechen war would be prosecuted without compromise; the oligarchs would be ‘liquidated as a class’; and the mass media, particularly television, would be placed under the control of the state authorities. It was a ‘managed democracy’ that found little favour in Western capitals, but one that allowed Putin to win an overwhelming victory in the 2004 presidential election and to retain a level of popular support that could be described as ‘Turkmenia’