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Medvedev set to defy pact with prime minister Vladimir Putin and seek second term, claims prominent politician President Dmitry Medvedev is pushing to extend his tenure in the Kremlin against the wishes of Russia’s powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin, a senior politician from the country’s ruling party has told the Guardian. Konstantin Zatulin, a prominent MP with United Russia, which dominates parliament and is headed by Putin, said Medvedev’s allies were waging a campaign to undermine the prime minister behind a public facade of unity between the two men. Until recently it was widely assumed that Medvedev would not run in presidential elections next March, so that Putin could return to his old job and serve two more terms to 2024. Most analysts had presumed that Putin would put himself forward while Medvedev would bow out meekly after a single term. However, Zatulin said in an interview that the president’s aides were jockeying to keep him in the Kremlin by eroding Putin’s support in parliament. “Medvedev wants to stay, he has broken the agreement and now Putin will have to persuade him to back off,” he said. His words highlight a deepening rift between Russia’s ruling duo. Putin has emphasised his credentials as a conservative statist who rejects “liberal experiments”, in what analysts interpreted as a bold pitch for the presidency. Medvedev, by contrast, has pushed his image as a tech-savvy moderniser and anti-corruption crusader. He recently removed top members of government from the boards of state companies such as oil giant Rosneft in favour of independent directors, a move seen as a blow to Putin’s “Kremlin Inc” view of the economy. The split extends to foreign policy, where Medvedev promotes the “resetting” of relations with Washington, while Putin has nurtured his image as a hawk who rejects US unilateralism. When Putin likened western military intervention in Libya to “medieval calls for crusades” last month, the president condemned the phrase a few hours later as “unacceptable”. While Medvedev has no party, Putin leads United Russia, which he uses to exert control over parliament, regional leaders and the bureaucracy. The party has said that Putin is its preferred candidate, and that it will consider supporting Medvedev only if the prime minister does not run. Medvedev, on the other hand, wields clout through his huge presidential administration, and via influential aides who can manipulate party politics and state media. Zatulin, the MP, was drawn into the conflict last month when he was removed from his post as deputy chairman of a Duma committee, in what he says was a punishment by Medvedev’s political fixers inside United Russia for statements he made in the chamber supporting Putin’s “Crusades” comments. He said that Kremlin aides – including the powerful ideologue, Vladislav Surkov — were also secretly cultivating a minor party, Fair Russia, as a potential vehicle for Medvedev. The party could be given a new leader such as the popular nationalist and representative to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, and then be boosted with huge administrative support in the run up to parliamentary elections in December, Zatulin said, providing Medvedev a platform for his bid to the presidency three months later. Zatulin said: “Medvedev has decided to put himself forward [as a presidential candidate]. He feels inspired and he senses a certain support.” Asked if Putin and Medvedev might go head to head, the politician replied: “Yes, I think so.” Other observers are also putting their money on Medvedev as the preferred candidate, though most of these think he will stand unopposed. The president, a lawyer, took up his post in 2008 after he was endorsed by the outgoing Putin, 58, who had spent eight years in the Kremlin but could not stand for a third consecutive term. Putin, a former KGB officer, then stepped into the prime ministerial role, from which he has appeared to take the lead in Russia’s ruling tandem, known collectively to wags as either “PutiMed” or “MedvePut”. Stanislav Belkovsky, a well-connected political commentator said that differences between the pair were “no more than between man and wife”. He believes they have already decided together that Medvedev will be the one to go forward. “For both of them, Medvedev is the best choice for the elections,” he said. “The ruling elite have many business interests and they want to legalise their capital abroad. They need to feel at home in New York and London, so nobody points a finger when they walk into the lobby bar at the Lanesborough or the Dorchester. “Medvedev is seen overseas as western-leaning and liberal so he is better placed than Putin to finish this cynical process.” The choice of candidate will almost certainly determine who becomes Russia’s next president. Political forces opposing the Kremlin have been systematically marginalised, so the emergence of a popular competing figure is practically impossible. Putin and Medvedev have respectable, if slipping, popularity ratings which can also be shored up by falsifying election results, a common practice over the past decade. Yet intrigue remains. On a visit to Sweden last week Putin was asked by journalists whether he intended to run. “It is still too early to tell,” he replied. “The time will come, and we will make the appropriate decision. You will like it. You will be satisfied.” That response prompted fresh speculation that either Medvedev – seen to be the favoured candidate in Washington and many European capitals – will run, or that both men will go to the polls, in a show of democratic competition. In another sign of nervousness in the ruling elite last week, Gleb Pavlovsky, a veteran spin doctor and adviser to the presidential administration, had his pass to the Kremlin revoked. Pavlovsky told reporters he was ousted for being too vocal in his support of the president at a time of tension in the tandem, and for saying – in a criticism of Putin – that Medvedev’s first term should not become “some recess in one person’s endless governance”. In spite of Medvedev’s ambitions, many Russians remain convinced that it is Putin who will muscle his way back to the Kremlin. They say that he is desperate to regain the top job, whatever his partner’s wishes. “I’m 80% certain that Putin will be the candidate,” said Vladimir Ryzhkov, a leader of Russia’s small democratic opposition, in an interview at his basement office in southern Moscow. “These three years he has kept up a pre-election campaign, driving yellow Ladas around the country, kissing snow leopards, firing crossbows at whales, putting out fires. And that’s allowed him to remain the most popular politician in the country.” Ryzhkov agreed that Medvedev was agitating to preserve his position, but argued that had only succeeded in firing up his opponents. “His recent behaviour has begun to irritate and frighten the people around Putin,” he said, predicting that the prime minister would stand alone. Zatulin, however, said he was convinced that Medvedev would run for the presidency. Asked if Putin could talk his protege out of competing in the election, he said: “Personally, I don’t think so. The point of no return has already been passed.” Russia Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev Tom Parfitt guardian.co.uk