Press review: Belarus’s official press on Putin’s successor
We still remember that the Belarusian media lamented when a couple of months ago Vladimir Putin agreed to head the United Russia party tickets for the parliamentary elections and named himself as a would-be prime minister.
The presidential mouthpiece Sovietskaya Belorussia then wrote ironically about a weaver from the Ivanovo region at the United Russia’s congress who asked Putin to stay in office for the third term. At the same time, the SB’s reporter did not mention our own “weavers”.
“I was most of all impressed by a weaver in this slow and solemn, like a Japanese shadow theater, show. During the 8th congress of the party, this delegate announced a new era in Russia’s politics. I think this happened before?!”
The Belarusian official press was enthusiastic to comment on naming Medvedev as Putin’s successor. “They have not guessed it right”, Sovietskaya Belorussia mocks at Russian political analysts, calling them “guys” and even comparing them with deer farmers.
“We feel very sorry about the Russian “expert community”. Messrs. Pavlovski, Nikonov, Markov, Pushkov and other star analysts have again taken the wrong sow by the ear and learned the main political news together with deer farmers in Chukotka!”
Should we believe those “sources” close to the Kremlin? The guys got lost as always in the three trees. However, they are unlikely to stop making important looks”.
Bloggers in Russia too sounded ironic about Medvedev’s nomination.
“Independent observers from Turkmenistan, Belarus and Kazakstan have already stated that the presidential elections in Russia were a free and open declaration of Kremlin’s will”.
Some bloggers began congratulating each other with “accomplished presidential elections in Russia” and making jokes about Medvedev.
When you laugh at yourself, it demonstrates that you have a sense of humor and a healthy irony. When you laugh at others, this laughter looks like scoffing. Sovietskaya Belorussia compared Medvedev with Petrosyan (a Russian comedian) and wrote that if Putin named the famous comedian as his successor, the effect would have been the same.
“Everyone is standing with an open mouth. Nobody had the right guess, but everyone is very excited and telling TV viewers that “Putin has made an ingenious choice”.
I think that if Vladimir Putin named Petrosyan as his successor, Gleb Pavlovsky would have shouted joyfully that this was also an ingenious decision too. At the same time, nobody is talking about the elections”.
Independent media in Belarus tried to make forecasts of how the relations between Minsk and Moscow would change in case Medvedev was elected the Russian president.
Andrei Kolesnikov, a Russian journalist close to the Kremlin, believes that there will be no changes in relations between the two countries. Kolesnikov said that the personal relations between Putin and Lukashenka began as unclouded because the two leaders did not know much about each other. Now that Putin knows Lukashenka very well, he will definitely pass over his knowledge to Medvedev.
