­The president’s speech in Magnitogorsk announcing 10 initiatives to support business and promote investments was in fact aimed at addressing the issue of a lack of trust. The president often refers to a lack of trust as being directly related to the lack of security, well being and freedom. But what is causing this lack of trust, and who is to counter it?

The government’s strategy is well known: to achieve macroeconomic stability at all costs for the sake of future investments. But the concept fell through. There is no trust and no investments, while corruption is growing and money, according to the president, “is fleeing our economy.” In private talks, government officials mention far more often now “unpredictability” than “stability.” The executive power is not standing up to its tasks.

Medvedev’s 10 initiatives are an attempt to bring back the executive power to what it is supposed to be doing. There is no achieving macroeconomic stability while the market players and regular citizens are experiencing a major lack of trust. The lack of trust landed a mighty blow to public savings and capitalization. Feeling insecure is not a good thing before the upcoming election, and not only for business. Ready to fight for the interests of every single shareholder of “corporation Russia,” Medvedev is redefining the executive power’s field of authority.

Medvedev is being quite firm with the government, taking it to account for its negative performance in protecting businesses, investors and vulnerable segments of the population. The president cannot make cabinet changes during the pre-election year – it is banned by law. Thus, he is applying as much pressure as he legally can upon the executive bodies. And while doing so, he is calling for the general public to bear witness.  For instance, he is not only now requesting mass media to follow up on corruption reports, he is asking for the findings to be published in the media.

The corruption everyone keeps complaining of is rather a sign of the crisis than its prime cause. Feeling insecure about the future fuels its growth at all levels, from top to bottom. At the top, what is viewed as most reprehensible and suspicious are top government officials having assumed posts on major corporate management boards. This extraordinary trend has received no support from society, but succeeded in delivering a false message to the state machine.

Suspicions of corruption, often ungrounded, have turned into a popular obsession used by such populists as Aleksey Navalny. One couldn’t think of a worse backdrop for Medvedev’s anti-corruption campaign! And though the new measures will only affect the companies competing on the domestic market (thus ruling out Gazprom), Deputy Prime Minister Sechin will have to leave Rosneft, and Minister of Transport Levitin will have to quit Aeroflot. It is possible that such measures may build up more trust for the state’s participation in business with citizens and investors.

In essence, the president announced that he is determined to build up a management line different and independent from executive power. Investment envoys will be appointed to work in the field, along with mobile presidential offices having what seems to be quite a wide range of functions. What many perceived as the president’s hobby – his fondness for direct dialogue with the public via web blogs and Twitter – is now turning into a system for a direct dialogue with the voters. Presidential power, which has come to act as a mediator and a guarantor, is now set to become Medvedev’s “social network.” Whether this network will produce a bond between the state leader and millions of voters safeguarding their interests, property, and freedoms remains yet to be seen.  Should this happen, it might have a development on the political level.

In the same speech, the president talked about another controversial area: taxes. Medvedev practically began to “softly” revise taxes that are burdensome for small and medium businesses. Overriding the government’s decisions, Medvedev is demanding that insurance premiums are reduced in 2012.

This is not just an attack on Aleksey Kudrin, the mighty dogmatist of the current financial regime. This is a revision of the holy of holies of the Putin government – the super conservative budget concept for the sake of the notorious “macroeconomic stability.” This stability has started to strangle Russian business and turned into a regime of total mistrust. This stability doesn’t exist, even people in the government begin to openly call this stability “chaos.” Medvedev gave the Ministry of Economic Development the right to demand revocation of any “anti-business regulations” imposed by the government itself.   

In his “Magnitogorsk Theses,” the president defined the central field for the upcoming elections. And it is not the competition between him and Putin, which some influential groups in the apparatus have been imposing on them – it is a principal choice of strategy. According to Medvedev, this strategy should be the protection of financial, social and economic interests of producing social groups, making the country safe for investors and therefore politically trustworthy. Russians want to invest their savings in the country’s economy and not be afraid that this money will be stolen by government officials.

The main threat to our people and their savings today is not the CIA, not American bombers, but the corrupt anti-modernization bloc in the apparatus. This apparatus robs the business which financially supports it. It undermines Russia's economy just like a parasite, or a tumor, eats up a human body.

And it is not just business that suffers from it, but also law enforcement agencies. The president sided with those who produce national wealth, as opposed to those who want to control and distribute everything. The president is attacking these parasites, and Medvedev’s political future very much depends on the success of this attack.

Medvedev proposes his own security concept – this security should be based on trust and protection of everybody’s rights. He is trying to stop this total control over economy, protect property and rights of its owners. Now, with the parliamentary and presidential elections at hand, social and business circles have one fundamental demand: let us work, let us do things. They need order and guarantees, not total control by untrustworthy government officials. They want security, not threats.  

His stakes are on producing classes, entrepreneurs, engineers and small businesses that have been squeezed by taxes and are now at the point of bankruptcy. Russia’s middle class is looking for someone to save it from extinction, to protect it. President Medvedev offers such protection.

­Gleb Pavlovsky, exclusively for RT Politics

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