10 July 2025
On the kinds of transition scenarios possible from ‘Day 0’ within the existing constitutional order
By Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya gazeta
18+. GENUINE MATERIAL (INFORMATION) HAS BEEN PRODUCED AND DISTRIBUTED BY FOREIGN AGENT INTERNATIONAL MEMORIAL OR CONCERNS THE ACTIVITY OF FOREIGN AGENT INTERNATIONAL MEMORIAL
[This label is a requirement under Russian law for publications in Russia and is provided here only to illustrate for a non-Russian audience the nature of repressive Russian legislation. Similarly asterisks below, as in the original text, indicate individuals and organisations designated as ‘foreign agents’ by the Russian authorities – also a requirement under repressive Russian law. – RiR]
A report has appeared on the internet from International Memorial* (which was liquidated by decision of the Russian Supreme Court), 100 Days After Putin: A Packet of Solutions for a Transitional Government. The authors—Nikolai Bobrinsky*, Gleb Bogush, Grigory Vaipan*, Natalia Sekretareva*, and someone anonymous—chose this somewhat misleading title because, following an early unanticipated cessation of the president’s authorities (for whatever reason), the Constitution allows for three months to select a new one, and adding in 10 days for totaling the voting results, that comes to exactly 100 days.
The report is more than 1000 pages long, but two-thirds consists of the draft laws and agreements that, in the authors’ opinion, would be required for a full-fledged transition of power. The authors start from a change also in the regime’s vector of development, and such hopes in the long run do have grounds—even if this happens not under the leadership of the first actors to come to power and not over 100 days but several years.
The report views the revolutionary scenario for a transition as the very worst, defining ‘revolution’ from the legal standpoint as a discontinuation of legal succession.
The authors analyze various scenarios, assigning the main role to an ‘acting president’ who interacts with the chambers of the Federal Assembly, the Constitutional Court, and other organs of power within a framework limited by the current Constitution (or else in the 1993 version without amendments).
The authors stipulate that ‘they are setting aside the political circumstances and legal foundations for the onset of “day 0”.’ The transition’s actual scenario, naturally, will depend on many extralegal factors—primarily, the actual disposition of forces and influence among the various elite groups. However, in the event of a constitutional crisis, which, bearing in mind the current regime’s construction, is highly likely, practical benefit from the analysis offered could be extracted not only by the regime’s opponents but also by representatives of current government and business elites and their separate groupings.
The likely crisis could take on the features of a real confrontation during which the acting president could lose control over the Federal Assembly and judicial system, as well as security structures or separate groupings inside them. We (old folks) observed something similar in 1993, during the power struggle between President Boris Yeltsin and the Supreme Soviet led by Ruslan Khasbulatov. It ended, as we know, with a decree disbanding the Congress of People’s Deputies, an armed clash, and the adoption in a referendum of the ‘Yeltsin’ Constitution.
A repeat of a similar scenario is undesirable, but a compromise among the various forces will require complex maneuvers and compromises from them. At the same time, all the actors (with the possible exception of the special services) will have an interest, the report’s authors believe, in acquiring democratic legitimacy, and this will require steps in the direction of the real democratization of society, in connection with which the ‘packet’ of proposals includes the repeal of the discriminatory laws and amendments to them that were passed mainly beginning in 2012.
In crisis conditions, interested groups may take from the proposed plan ‘100 Days’ recipes for individual maneuvers, sometimes quite elaborate but not pushing them beyond the limits of the current Constitution. For example, the prime minister, who by law becomes acting president in the event of the exit of the previous one from the stage before the end of his term, may in his capacity as acting president appoint another prime minister, himself refuse the presidential post, and thereby drastically alter the disposition of figures on the political board.
A variation on repealing amendments to the 2020 Constitution might be the acting president appealing to the Constitutional Court, which (after the removal of its chairman and the appointment of the lacking judges by a separate act of the Federation Council) could deem these amendments unconstitutional due to procedural violations in their passage. Also possible is the variation of calling a Constitutional Assembly to adopt a radically new Constitution (for example, a parliamentary model).
A very ingenious but strictly legal path is proposed for holding simultaneously with the presidential election an election for a new composition of the legislative organs:
a) the acting president shepherds the candidacy of a new general prosecutor through the Federation Council and appoints a new Central Election Committee;
b) the general prosecutor uncovers violations that might attest to manipulations in previous elections for the State Duma and regional governors;
c) the Central Election Committee, on the basis of the prosecutor’s investigation, declares the results of previously held elections null and void;
d) the acting president schedules new elections simultaneously with a presidential election.
The report combines a political utopia and highly perfected legislative technique in an amazing way. The fact that lawyers like this exist in the Russian-speaking oecumene gives hope, even if at the moment they are mainly compelled to be abroad.
Drawing up a legal ‘packet’ is no less important than plans for political and economic reforms. It’s an array of instruments. What will be extracted from this when and by whom is another question.
*Added to the ‘foreign agents’ register by the Russian Justice Ministry.
Translated by Marian Schwartz
A link to the report by Memorial has been added to the text above. It can also be accessed here: https://100days.memorialcenter.org
