22 March 2018
Leadership and Succession
China, Russia and the EU.
By Neil Tidmarsh
China, Russia and the EU have all been preoccupied with questions of leadership and succession in recent weeks.
Shortly after Mao Zedong’s demise, the Chinese Communist Party, anxious to avoid another dictatorship, introduced a limit of two five-year terms on future leaders. So when President Xi secured a second (and presumably final) term as leader in last autumn’s Chinese Communist Party’s Congress, observers gave close attention to the six politicians he introduced as his fellow members of the Politburo Standing Committee; surely his choice of successor would be among them? But, strangely, none seemed likely candidates – they were all over 60 years of age, for a start. This apparent reluctance to nominate an heir was followed by the congress’s agreement to enshrine his name and political ideology in the party’s constitution, an exceptional honour granted only previously to Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong – and by the time the Congress had run its course it was clear that the president had consolidated all political power in his own hands and now intended to steer his country for the next few decades rather than just the next few years.
So no one was surprised last month when China’s governing Communist Party announced plans to scrap the clause in the constitution that limits presidents to two five-year terms. And no one was surprised this month when all 2970 delegates at the National People’s Congress voted unanimously in favour of the plan, and so removed any limit on President Xi Jinping’s term in office. It appears that he is now president for life; he’s 64 years old, so it will be a good few decades before questions of succession rear their head again.
President Putin is 65 years old. The Russian constitution also imposes a limit of two (six year) terms on the presidency. Questions about succession were being asked even before last Sunday’s election, as Putin’s success in securing a second term was a foregone conclusion. He’s expected to expend much time and energy over the next six years securing a safe succession, and onlookers will give a great deal of attention to anything which suggests the nomination of an heir. Already some commentators are saying that Prime Minister Medvedev (aged 52) has proved his loyalty, as has parliamentary chairman Mr Volodin (aged 54); others are trying to spot potential leaders, such as Sergei Ivanov Jnr, among upcoming groups of younger politicians and businessmen.
It’s assumed that Putin will step down in 2024: he’ll be 71; he’ll have been in power, one way or another, for 18 years; there are reports that he’s had enough of “working like a galley slave” and The Times recently claimed that “in the past few months he has at times appeared jaded and struggled to articulate a new vision”. But power such as he wields is not easy to put aside, as we’ve seen recently in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He may feel that Russia cannot function without him; he may feel that only the office of president can protect him from the full consequences of the many allegations made against him; he may find the possibility of opponents gaining power and dismantling his work simply unbearable.
Putin has come back from two terms before, after all. He served two terms from 1999 to 2008, and then Dmitry Medvedev kept the seat warm for him over the next term until his return in 2012. He could try the same thing again in 2024 and return in 2030, when he’ll be 76. And no doubt he’s been following the goings-on in China very carefully over the past few months; is he wondering if the Russian constitution could be subjected to similar changes? After all, it was changed on his return in 2012, to extend the term length to six years.
This week a spokesman for the Putin election campaign, Andrei Kondrashov, thanked the UK for Putin’s election victory, claiming that accusations following the assassination attempt on Sergei Skripal and his daughter had encouraged ordinary Russians to close ranks behind Putin in a show of solidarity with his leadership. It’s hard to understand how accusations of attempted murder – of the most horrible and irresponsible kind – from around the world could ever be considered a vote-winner, but there you are.
By the end of last week, most of the Western world had united against Putin’s regime over the attacks in Salisbury; the leaders of the UK, France, Germany and the USA issued a joint statement saying that there was “no plausible alternative” to the idea that it was the work of the Kremlin, and that it was a breach of international law which “threatens the security of us all”. Most of the Western world, that is, but not all – not the EU, which has yet to make any statement about it whatsoever. Indeed, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, wrote to President Putin this week to congratulate him warmly on his election victory and to offer him and his country “a place in a cooperative pan-European security order”. Quite what a country accused of cyber-attacks on the German government last month and of political assassinations in the UK this month could get up to inside such an order boggles the mind.
Jean-Claude Juncker’s leadership and succession have themselves been the subject of much discussion in Brussels in recent weeks. He has annoyed many MEPs by rushing through the appointment of his chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, as the European Commission’s new secretary general. He was accused of by-passing established procedures by forcing the appointment on the 28 commissioners as a fait accompli, a “palace coup”, an “arrangement among friends”. And last month, the leaders of the EU countries met in Brussels to discuss the appointment of Juncker’s successor – or, rather, the mechanics of making that appointment.
Amazingly, the EU’s treaties are astonishingly vague about this absolutely crucial issue – who chooses the president of the European commission (the EU’s executive, which drafts and enforces all EU laws) and how he or she is chosen. They state that the EU leaders choose the European Commission’s president “taking into account the elections to the European parliament” but the parliament must give its consent. In 2014, the parliament devised the “spitzenkandidat” system whereby the biggest pan-European political group in the parliament nominates its candidate who is then confirmed by the European council (i.e. the leaders of the EU countries), and finally a vote in the parliament places him in the job. Thus was Jean-Claude Juncker enthroned.
Many EU leaders thought that Juncker was the wrong man for the job, and resented having him forced upon them by the parliament, although only two of them (Cameron and one other) were prepared to vote against him. But now the EU leaders, led by Donald Tusk, are determined that their Council will not be outmanoeuvred by the parliament again, and are trying to put together an alternative to the “spitzenkandidat” system. France’s President Macron is concerned that his new REM party will never have enough members in the European parliament to nominate their own candidate for president of the commission, not being part of any pan-European group. Others leaders are worried that the recent victories of far-right parties and other populists in elections to national parliaments will soon be reflected in elections to the European parliament, enabling such parties to nominate a far-right or populist candidate. The parliament opposes any initiatives by the Council to change the system as undemocratic and lacking in transparency, but the Council could say the same thing about the parliament’s own “spitzenkandidat” system. It remains to be seen what the Council might propose, but it’s doubtful whether the parliament would find it acceptable.
The elevation of President Xi to “president for life” inevitably encourages scepticism about China’s claims to democracy. Accusations about vote-rigging, and the absence of credible opposition, invites scepticism about Russia’s claims to democracy. But the confusion and conflict about the way a key appointment at the very heart of the EU is made – a way unsatisfactory from a representative point of view and indequate from a practical point of view – must inevitably pose questions about Brussel’s own understanding of democracy.
