MOSCOW -- President Vladimir V. Putin yesterday backed First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as a candidate to succeed him, abruptly snatching away the shroud of secrecy that has obscured the hunt for a new Russian leader.
The country has been waiting anxiously for Putin, who finishes his second term in office next year, to anoint a successor. Conventional wisdom in Moscow has long taken it for granted that whomever Putin tapped would be elected president.
Still, Putin's surprise endorsement startled many analysts. Medvedev, an ambitious young Kremlin bureaucrat with strong business ties, earlier had been seen as a likely successor to Putin. But in recent weeks, as an increasingly strident Putin railed against foreign influence and basked in the adoration of the masses, Medvedev's name was hardly heard, and his chances seemed to have dimmed.
Putin himself remains the greatest source of uncertainty shadowing Russia's immediate future. He has made it clear that he's not ready to relinquish power. Parliamentary elections last week, which his party swept, were widely seen as a referendum on his rule, and he sat back while his followers filled the country with the slogan "The glory of Putin is the glory of Russia."
Unlike Putin, who rose quietly through the ranks of the KGB and was still a virtual unknown when he ascended to the presidency, Medvedev hails from the less hawkish faction of the Kremlin. A law professor and St. Petersburg bureaucrat in Soviet times, he is chairman of Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas company.
"The role of Mr. Putin is the most important issue: How these two will get along, whether Putin wants to have a formal position for himself," said Andrei Kortunov, president of the New Eurasia Foundation. "This will define a lot of the opportunities and restrictions Medvedev might face."
Putin appeared on national television yesterday, seated at a table in his Kremlin office. Medvedev sat at his left. Also gathered were the heads of four political parties: United Russia, Just Russia, the Agrarian Party and the Civil Force Party. Cameramen lined the office walls, and flashbulbs popped as the men went through a dialogue presented as a spontaneous discussion.
"We would like to propose to you the candidacy ... of first deputy premier of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev," said Boris Gryzlov, head of Putin's United Russia party. "We think he is a most socially oriented candidate. ... We think the next four years should go under the slogan of improving living standards."
