This class is devoted to the presidency of Dmitri Medvedev.
A very interesting period when the president in
the super presidential system wasn't the key decision maker.
By the end of the second term,
Vladimir Putin faced the option,
whether to make amendments to the Constitution and participate in
the presidential elections for the third time in a row or to appoint successor.
According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation,
one person cannot be elected President more than two times in a row.
Since parliamentary elections in 2003,
United Russia party had constitutional majority in State Duma.
Remember about retrospective voting theory
so they could make amendments to the Constitution?
But, Vladimir Putin declared his unwillingness to change the Constitution.
So, Vladimir Putin decided to appoint a successor.
Two close Putin's allies Sergey Ivanov and
Dmitry Medvedev were seen by the experts as potential successors.
And here, we come to the point about the competitiveness of Russian politics.
There was lack of competitiveness at the elections but at the same time,
the inter-elite competition was really crucial.
One, Dmitry Medvedev was the representative of so-called Liberal Clan.
And another one, Sergey Ivanov was the representative of the so-called Security Clan.
In November 2005, Dmitry Medvedev became
the first Vice Prime Minister and was appointed as
the Manager of the Priority National Projects.
It was the signal to the public.
Medvedev was chosen as Putin's successor.
The Priority National Projects covered
the most crucial issues of the Russian economy and society.
The National Project health was aimed to invest money into development
of medical centers and medical care in the Russian Federation.
The National Project education was aimed to develop school education first of all,
but also to invest money into higher education.
Accessible housing was also a very important issue for
Russian society especially for youth and young families.
Finally, it was very important to develop the agricultural industry and to invest
money to help agricultural business to develop and to become the key exporter.
But this was also the start of Dmitry Medvedev's presidential campaign.
He won the elections on March 2,
2008 with 70.28% of votes.
Nevertheless, the elites and the public realized that
Medvedev's electorate rating was very dependent on Putin's supports.
The decision-making center moved from the Presidents administration to the government
of Russian Federation because Vladimir Putin became the Chairman of government.
Also, Dimitry Medvedev was rather active with different suggestions and initiatives.
Moreover, his presidency started almost together with the world economic crisis in 2008.
He also faced the need for modernization
of the economy and liberalization of the political system.
The key vectors of Medvedev's economic policy were the following.
First, modernization of economy.
It was important to shift from stabilization policies to development policies.
Medvedev announced the policy of innovative development,
and for example, he started the project of Skolkovo,
a Russian Silicon Valley.
As we have already noticed,
the world economic crisis was started together with
the Medvedev's presidency and it affected the Russian economy a lot.
So one of the key aspects of
Medvedev's economic policy was development of anticrisis program.
There were two basic aspects of this anticrisis policies.
First, the use of reserve funds to invest money and to cope with the financial problems.
Another aspect were state loans to keep banks and companies,
to help them to cope with crisis effects.
On this slide, you can see the key political changes
that were implemented during Medvedev's presidential term.
Actually, it was the scope of some kind of
liberalization reforms after the construction of vertical of power by President Putin.
First of all, party and electoral law were liberalized.
Then, there were some constitutional amendments.
The prolongation of President's term to six years and State Duma term to five years.
Then, there was the police reform.
To conclude, Medvedev fulfilled his main function.
He managed to be a rather active President but not the
leading person in the tandem with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
In the end of Medvedev's term,
they declared that Vladimir Putin would run the presidential campaign in 2012.