Medvedev Says Leader Plan Was Studied

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

Published: October 15, 2011

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev struck a defensive note in a speech on Saturday about the system for choosing Russia’s leaders, insisting that he and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin had not decided to switch places during a fishing trip, as some commentators have suggested.

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In fact, he said, the decision was hardly so casual and came about as a result of a “sufficiently long analysis” in discussions between the two men, weighing, among other things, Mr. Putin’s higher public approval ratings.
“You know, people say they met somewhere in the woods, on a fishing trip, and changed everything, worked out this configuration and then came out with it at the convention — it’s not that way at all,” Mr. Medvedev said, referring to pictures of the two men fishing together on the Volga River this summer.
The pair later announced, on Sept. 24 at a convention of the United Russia party, that Mr. Putin would run for president in elections next March and appoint Mr. Medvedev as prime minster if he won.
It is widely believed that Mr. Putin will easily win the elections, , in part because he has shown little hesitation in repressing opposition parties and candidates.
Still, discontent has simmered among urban professionals, some of whom Mr. Medvedev spoke to on Saturday at a town-hall-style meeting at Digital October, a converted space for technology startups in the former Red October chocolate factory in Moscow.
Mr. Medvedev’s speech seemed intended to address the disillusionment of a segment of the urban middle class. Some had earnestly supported Mr. Medvedev, as if he were an independent political figure espousing reform.
But they learned last month that he and Mr. Putin had decided in secret that Mr. Putin would remain in charge both in name and in truth.
“I know that when we announced the decision at the convention of United Russia, a part of my supporters, those people, who said change is necessary, felt some disappointment,” he said.
But, using some of the starkest language yet about his loyalty to Mr. Putin, Mr. Medvedev said he was never willing to turn on his patron to retain power. “For some reason, a lot of people think that whoever becomes president should hammer everybody around him, destroying those who helped his political career, and life,” Mr. Medvedev said. “I wasn’t raised that way.”
Mr. Medvedev suggested his stepping down from the presidency did not signal the end of support for the causes he has championed, such as curbing official corruption and diversifying the economy away from petroleum dependence.
Mr. Medvedev promised a government of fresh faces to carry out this agenda — presumably with the exception of himself and Mr. Putin.
Adopting a tough tone, he threatened to fire older bureaucrats, in this case those who do not learn to use digital documents. Transforming Russia through technology has been a consistent theme of his.
Mr. Medvedev told his supporters he had “no right to divest myself of responsibility for anything that is happening in our country.”