On air on Echo of Moscow, political analyst Stanislav Belkovsky stated that candidates for the highest state office should be sought among the most ambitious people who do not hide their readiness to occupy the presidential chair. According to him, he sees "two of the most striking, truly striking figures" — Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
Belkovsky stipulated that publicly neither of them declares an intention to become president; on the contrary, they deny it. He explained his conclusions by the politicians' facial expressions and actions — "the very indirect signs on which mausoleum-style analytics is built."
Mishustin: Ambition and Pause
According to the political analyst, people who have known Mishustin for a long time said that even while head of the Federal Tax Service he told associates that together with his team he would someday become prime minister of Russia. Belkovsky believes that Mishustin "is consistently following this path," but was "somewhat expansive and aggressive in his PR campaign" and by the end of the year was forced to "lie low."
"He realized that one must be able to wait and to endure, and that one should not demonstrate too clearly one's ambitions, which had become poorly concealed," Belkovsky said.
Sobyanin: Moderator of Interests
Against this backdrop, according to the analyst's assessment, "the figure of Sergei Semenovich Sobyanin rises like a giant," who, as Belkovsky asserted, managed to establish in Moscow "a system of power absolutely correct from the Kremlin's point of view" and to become a moderator of the interests of federal groups and the main Putin-adjacent clans in the capital.
Belkovsky recalled that in the spring Sobyanin, according to him, "virtually almost ruled the country," since federal officials fled to shelters. After that, the analyst added, the mayor "received a backlash from the Kremlin" — he was hinted that he had taken on too much. At the same time, according to Belkovsky, Sobyanin showed himself to be a powerful public politician and a person capable of taking responsibility and thereby laying claim to the highest state office.
1
