Putin’s attempt at political makeover makes Russian elite nervous

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin’s steady and seemingly solid political structure, under pressure from within and without, is undergoing a renovation that could remake the whole edifice, if it doesn’t crack open first. Few seem to understand how this will turn out, or what their places will be in it when it’s done.

Ever since street protests broke out in December 2011, rattling the ruling United Russia party just as Putin was preparing to retake the presidency, expectations have been widespread that the system here would have to change. Now it’s happening, most obviously with almost daily public exposures of corruption and chiseling schemes, which for years were ignored.

Gallery

Politics and Power: Putin's Ascent in Russia: Since taking the office in 2000, Vladimir Putin has expanded the powers of Russia's presidency, consolidating authority in the Kremlin and weakening other democratic institutions.

Graphic

TIMELINE: Russia's president cracks down on dissent.

The highly publicized investigations may be mostly for show, but they have left the top rung of the political ladder nervously trying to discern the message and, analysts agree, figure out what the new rules are. Coupled with this is a sharp turn inward, away from the West, that promises to force some hard choices among an up-to-now comfortable cohort.

That suggests risks for Putin, as well — depending on how the people around him eventually make those choices.

Broadly speaking, the Kremlin appears to be dropping the most egregious offenders over the side, like so much excess ballast. An Olympic official whose construction company was over budget by 900 percent on the building of a ski jump — and way behind schedule — was exposed by Putin himself on national television. A member of the State Duma, Vladimir Pekhtin, was let go when he couldn’t come up with a satisfactory explanation for the undeclared Miami properties in his name.

Pekhtin, according to Dozhd TV, resigned his seat only after a meeting inside the Kremlin that lasted until 2 a.m. His departure — soon followed by those of three others, including a member of the upper house — appeared to send an especially strong signal: that the nationalist fervor Putin is stirring up comes with teeth, and it’s time for those who want to keep in his favor to remember the motherland, and bring that one foot that’s been out the door back inside.

With the most recent Levada Center poll showing 54 percent of the public disapproving of the government’s performance, Putin is demanding loyalty from those around him.

One way to ensure that loyalty is to cut off their access to financial security in the West, Tatyana Stanovaya, head of the analysis department at the Center for Political Technologies here, wrote in an essay for the group’s Web site.

But that changes the deal that for a decade has guided the upper echelon, said Gleb Pavlovsky, a prominent political consultant who was ousted from the Kremlin nearly two years ago. Obeisance to Putin meant his loyalists could have their pickings.

In fact, he said, “our ruling class is loyal to the extent that it is stealing.”

There was protection for those who went along, but now that protection has been drawn back for some, and the rest, feeling the heat from above, don’t know where the red lines are anymore.