Today, Putin announced that Medvedev would be the choice of a coalition of four major parties in Russia for the upcoming Presidential election. This coalition included Putin's party United Russia, Mironov's A Just Russia (with about 8% of the seats in the new Duma), the Agrarian party, and the Citizen Power party. According to current news, Medvedev was a compromise choice. Either way, Medvedev is a surprise if for the simple fact that he was a predictable choice: for almost a year, Dmitrii Medvedev, the deputy prime minister, has been considered a likely successor to Putin (second only to Ivanov the other deputy prime minister).

Medvedev - as the numerous press reports are likely to stress - is a lawyer, generally thought as a technocrat, and has no background in the KGB - instead, he knows Putin from his days in St. Petersburg working for the liberal, westernizing mayor Anatolii Sobchak. This choice suggests a few things:

1. This represents a set back for Ivanov, the hawkish former KGB deputy prime minister, who has recently been trumpeting Russia's need for nuclear parity with the west. The fact that he was not chosen suggests that some of the feuding between rival security service clans recently will better be mediated by someone like Medvedev who is not involved.

2. Medvedev is the Chairman of Gazprom and is considered a mild westernizer in terms of his economic policies and approach. The markets have responded well to this announcement.

3. It also is a version of the weak successor scenario in which Putin will try to exert some continued influence on his successor. Medvedev is young (only 42) and also owes his entire career to Putin (they have known each other for 17 years). Medvedev will need Putin to mediate between the security services in the administration. A large and interesting question to watch will be how many liberals and non-security service people that Medvedev brings into the administration.

4. The Russian blogging community has responded with commentary, some of it fairly cynical. A couple of bloggers have suggested that Putin picked Medvedev because he is the only candidate shorter than Putin, others have suggested that they now will be voting for Gazprom to be the new Russian president.

5. Finally, it turns out that Mr. Medvedev - who is a soft spoken and largely wooden on camera particularly in contrast to the more charismatic leaders like Zhirinovskii - as a youth was a major hard rock fan, loving Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin. He also reportedly loves the sound of vinyl records.