­Vladimir Putin’s latest article elaborating on his electoral agenda for the oncoming presidential election is indisputably well-written, as far as general statements are concerned. The need for a more democratic society, the necessity of combating corruption and breaking the vicious link between power and property – Putin addresses these and other issues in a most outspoken manner and comes across as fairly appealing. One could even argue the presidential hopeful has embraced (or snatched) the key messages and demands put forth by the Russian opposition during its recent mass protests. Which is hardly surprising if you consider that Putin’s latest article is largely addressing this very demographic.

The problem with Putin’s piece is that, while making these veracious statements, it offers little if any insight as to how the would-be president plans to tackle the relevant issues.

Moreover, Putin seems to be driving himself into something of a logical trap: he advocates the need for change and attests to growing public demand for novelty, while being a long-standing political leader currently running for his third presidential term following 12 years in power. This invites a few reasonable questions to Mr. Putin. First of all, if you are so well aware of the country’s needs and challenges – which did not emerge overnight – what have you been doing for the last 12 years, and why have you effectively done nothing to address them while being President and Prime Minister?

Another contradiction becomes apparent once you try answering the above question. Tackling the issues that have been haunting Russia’s political system and institutions would largely require a critical reform – if not a demolition – of the very system of governance that Putin himself has created over these past 12 years. Indeed, the ills of present-day Russia Putin refers to in his article are largely the product of his time in office and the “vertical of power” that he presides over.

Putin has invariably argued that his system of governance is efficient and flawed with nothing but a few minor drawbacks. In other words, Russia’s urgent issues that Putin himself has attested to, cannot be resolved within the present system, and the prime minister is explicitly unwilling to introduce any principal changes to it. Which gets us locked in a vicious circle.

Putin’s latest article is evidently a campaign address, just as were his three previous articles. Rather smartly, the aspiring president is targeting each of Russia’s various social and political groups with a specific narrative. He talks economics, advocates democratic reforms and addresses ethnic issues, depending on what section of the public he is presently talking to. But will there be any follow-up to all these reasonable statements once the election is over?

Not from where I am standing. Being a political leader who thinks his previous 12 years in power were all but flawless, why would Putin want to change anything once he is elected president for at least another term? In similarity to an unwritten sports rule, where a winning team is not to be reshaped, there is no logical reason why a president elect would agree to introduce a cardinal change to a system he considers a huge success.

For example, Putin’s recent article bears no mention of how he plans to ensure the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. Meanwhile, Russia’s corrupt legal system constitutes one of the country’s biggest problems, and no other significant issue can be resolved as long as this challenge remains unaddressed.

The same goes for the much trumpeted issue of corruption. Putin does refer to it in his agenda, suggesting that a special list of civil service positions most prone to corruption should be drawn up, and the relevant officials’ incomes and spending data should be made more transparent. While being perfectly well-meaning in principle, such an approach turns out rather superficial in essence. Putin himself has repeatedly acknowledged that corruption in Russia has become systemic. Ergo, there is no single category of officials in this country that is more prone to corruption than others: in fact, Russia’s entire bureaucracy is corruption-ridden from the bottom up. What about vested interests that have penetrated the top tiers of government? Combating this kind of corruption would require the government to give up its hold on the economy – and nothing in Putin’s economic agenda suggests he is planning to do that.

Another one of Putin’s seemingly catchy, yet superficial proposals is his idea that the Russian parliament should examine any public initiative that manages to attract as many as 100,000 supporters on the internet. In a country with some 140 million residents, you can muster 100,000 supporters for practically anything. Say, an appeal to expropriate and arbitrarily redistribute property from certain income categories could easily collect 500,000 supporter signatures – should the State Duma consider such a proposal?

Whatever novelty or reform is to be initiated in Russia, there would be a crucial role to be played by public institutions such as parliament, the judiciary or the free press. Meanwhile, Russia’s judges are notoriously prone to corruption and susceptible to tacit instructions from the government; the latest parliamentary election has been denounced as blatantly rigged by both the house opposition and “extra-systemic” protesters; and any major media outlet with nationwide coverage in this country is owned either by the state or by a government-affiliated interest group.

In other words, Vladimir Putin’s agenda may be well-aimed in some of its points and debatable in others, but it is generally superficial and fails to address the plagues that are rooted in his very system of governance. What many Russians see as vicious and damaging, Vladimir Putin sees as “efficient” and “successful.”

­Nikolay Svanidze, for RT

­The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.