Premier at the device – Newspaper Kommersant No. 49 (7494) dated 03/23/2023

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin became a full member of Politburo 2.0, an informal decision-making center in the Russian leadership. Such a conclusion is made by Minchenko Consulting experts in the report “Mishustin’s government: a year under sanctions and SVO” published on Thursday. The anti-crisis successes of the government made it possible to strengthen both the public and administrative positions of the prime minister, and his importance in the informal power hierarchy has grown, the authors of the study say.

Under the conditions of a special military operation (SVO) and unprecedented sanctions pressure, the Russian government has demonstrated high efficiency, and the national economy has shown unexpected resilience, according to the Minchenko Consulting report, timed to coincide with the Prime Minister’s annual report to the State Duma scheduled for March 23. This, according to experts, was facilitated by consolidation within the Cabinet itself, good coordination with other government agencies, effective energy diplomacy, which made it possible to balance the budget, and a high level of digitalization of public administration, which allows making quick decisions.

As a result, Mikhail Mishustin’s public and administrative positions have strengthened, and his importance in the informal power hierarchy has grown.

Of course, the authors of the report note, the role of the government in the system of Russian power is still balanced by the autonomous goal-setting of other influential state structures. But effective anti-crisis management and the personal legitimacy of the prime minister make the government in 2023 one of the key contours of the country’s governance. Although almost from the moment of its creation, the new Cabinet has faced serious pressure from external circumstances: the pandemic, the subsequent record drop in oil prices in 2020 and unprecedented sanctions against Russia. All this forced the government to act as the main anti-crisis moderator.

The authors of the report note that the crises are also reflected in sociological indicators. Thus, during the pandemic and at the height of the fall in oil prices, the government’s ratings, according to VTsIOM, did not rise above 40%, and sometimes even fell below 35%. But as anti-crisis measures unfolded, the rating stabilized, and the approval of the prime minister’s activities outstripped the approval of the government’s work as a whole. Mishustin’s average job approval rating from July to the end of December 2020 was 43.3%, while the government’s was 35.6%.

A new “drawdown” of the rating occurred in November 2021 and was associated with a negative public outcry around the bill on the introduction of QR codes. At the low of support (late November – early December 2021), the prime minister’s rating was 37.9%, while the government’s approval dropped to 31.2%. However, after the start of the NWO and the introduction of large-scale sanctions against Russia, the ratings again showed a significant increase. If at the end of January 2022 the activities of Mikhail Mishustin were approved by 40% of respondents, then in a month – already 48%. The government had a similar increase in support: from 35% to 49%, respectively. Such a sociological trend can be interpreted as a “rallying around the flag” effect, the authors of the report admit, but it is also worth noting the effective work of the government’s information block.

As a result, the average approval rating of the prime minister from the beginning of the NWO to March 2023 was 52.2%, and that of the government was 51.2%.

Political scientist Alexander Nemtsev draws attention to the almost complete absence of negativity towards Mikhail Mishustin both in the public sphere and “on the sidelines”: this means that the prime minister was able to build working relationships with all the players. The political weight of the head of the Cabinet has grown significantly over the past year, this is an obvious trend, says political analyst Nikolai Mironov. The government has done a lot of work this year, it is manually struggling with the shortage of raw materials and equipment, building supply chains, the expert notes. “As for Mishustin, he proved himself to be an effective anti-crisis manager. The prime minister, it seems to me, generally works 24/7 and is now perceived as an indispensable figure, ”the political scientist sums up.

Anastasia Kornya