To better understand the rise of Dmitry Medvedev to become Russia's new president, a Russia-watcher asks us to consider this: Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces that one of his top backroom people will be his successor -- and Canadians then rubber-stamp that choice.

"He has very few attributes beyond a long and proven loyalty to Vladimir Putin," Mark MacKinnon, a former Globe and Mail Moscow correspondent and author of "The New Cold War," told CTV.ca about Medvedev.

The 42-year-old presidential candidate won 70 per cent of the vote on March 2 in an election seen as deeply flawed.

"The public doesn't know him. The public doesn't trust him. They voted for him because Vladimir Putin told them they should," MacKinnon said.

Putin is stepping down after eight years as Russia's president (he was constitutionally limited to two terms), but will stay in politics as prime minister. He has also recently been named chairman of the United Russia party. That party holds two-thirds of the seats in the state Duma, or lower house of Russia's parliament.

His association with Medvedev goes back to their home town of St. Petersburg, where they worked together in the office of Mayor Anatoly Sobchak in the early 1990s.

When Putin, a one-time KGB operative, became prime minister in the summer of 1999, he offered Medvedev a job in Moscow, making him deputy head of the government administration.

Putin replaced the ailing Boris Yeltsin as president at the very end of 1999. When Putin ran for the presidency in 2000, Medvedev headed his campaign.

Medvedev then became chair of Gazprom, Russia's energy giant -- and an entity Putin wanted to bring under Kremlin control.

Putin named Medvedev his chief of staff in October 2003, making the then-38-year-old one of the most powerful backroom players in Russian politics.

In 2005, Putin named Medvedev first deputy prime minister, giving him responsibility for projects to improve health care, education, housing and agriculture.

On Dec. 10, 2007, Putin said Medvedev was his favoured candidate to become Russia's new president. Medvedev returned the favour the next day by saying he wanted Putin to be his prime minister.

MacKinnon said there was another serious contender for the presidency -- former defence minister Sergei Ivanov, who had a higher profile than Medvedev, was closer ideologically to Putin and even had a KGB background.

"Instead of choosing someone who was loyal to the system ... Putin chose someone who was loyal to him," he said.

Piotr Dutkiewicz, a Carleton University professor and Russia expert, told CTV.ca that he thinks Medvedev has the qualities to be president even if he hadn't had such a close association with Putin.

Besides his experience in government and business, Medvedev has a doctorate in law and speaks fluent English, he said.

The Deep Purple-loving grey man

The new head of the giant, nuclear-armed, energy-rich nation of 142 million was born on Sept. 14, 1965 in St. Petersburg.

He is reportedly the youngest Russian leader since Tsar Nicholas II.

Medvedev's parents were teachers who lived in a modest apartment in St. Petersburg. They had usual Russian middle class holidays on the Black Sea.

He's married, has a son and has been christened in the Russian Orthodox church.

Some accounts say he's a fan of late 1960s-early 1970s British rock bands like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.

MacKinnon said Deep Purple played a concert in Moscow's Red Square in February and Medvedev did come out to sit in the front row. "He did bob his head very confidently and it looked like he knew the tunes," he said.

But Medvedev isn't someone who has been extensively written about or studied, with his name usually only popping up in announcements. "He was sort of a grey man," MacKinnon said.

Kremlin spin doctors are currently "trying to create a public personality for him," he said, adding, "I read the other day that he's into yoga."

Presidential priorities

Having a prime minister as powerful and popular as Putin is a new development in Russian politics. MacKinnon said figuring out how to make that work -- given that constitutionally, the presidency is the more important position -- will be a challenge for both men.

Both Dutkiewicz and MacKinnon agree the top priority for Medvedev and Putin has to be preserving Russia's political stability and for that, they must work together.

"I am confident that our tandem will prove to be absolutely effective. But what I cannot agree with in your statement is the fact that a dual power arrangement will emerge in this case, of a type which has historically resulted in various negative consequences for Russia," Medvedev told the Financial Times, a British newspaper, in an interview published on March 24.

Medvedev told the newspaper, in what MacKinnon said was the new president's only major interview, that he sees his country's priorities as follows:

• Maintain economic stability,
• Develop economic freedoms,
• Promote social programmes; and
• Ensure that Russia sustains its position in the world.

Dutkiewicz noted that Russia has a huge corruption problem that is hindering its development.

MacKinnon said Medvedev will probably be more pro-Western and pro-business than Ivanov would have likely been.

NATO's decision at its April summit in Bucharest, Romania to not grant quick NATO membership to Georgia and Ukraine may help substantially in easing tensions, he said.

"So perhaps if you're reading in the wind, perhaps the era of confrontation between Russia and the West may be about to ease," he said.

As to the relationship between Putin and Medvedev, MacKinnon said the scene at the upcoming Victory in Europe military parade in Red Square may provide initial clues.

During Soviet times, who stood where and with whom during such ceremonies provided insight into the murky inner workings of the Kremlin, and so it might be in this day, he said.

"The new Kremlin is a lot like the old Kremlin," MacKinnon chuckled.