Actually as for creating a stable authoritarian system this might be rather sound. Unlike Mexico's old system, which many considered to be the "perfect" one-party state, this allows for even more of an aura of competition but yet you still have the one-party aspect in place. This creating a faux dicotomy of policies has an intriguing effect from a political prospective and creating this "competitive" aspect within the United Russia one-party state may lead to a new Mexican system.
Well, nothing is new under the sun: this would be a variation on the 1960s-70s in Venezuela and Colombia.
You know, this is a hunch, but a very strong one: ain't happening. The current stability in Russia is oil-induced, and this has bought off the population, resulting in the regime being genuinely popular (see Venezuela). The government (unlike in Venezuela) has managed the abundance, to its credit, cautiously, and did create a huge rainy day fund, but there is absolutely no evidence that in the absence of the gold rush they'd be able to maintain the same level of control.
In all the cases of "party regimes" I know of (Mexico being a classic example), the thing that induced them in the first place was an actual civil war, the fear of resumption of which induced both the elites and the societies at large to acquiesce to the regime. Russia hasn't had a real civil war in 85 years. Instead, the government propaganda apparatus has manufactured a twofold threat: the "color revolutions" of the Ukrainian sort and the "foreign meddling, designed to weaken Russia". To the extent that Ukraine remains peaceful and reasonably successful, the former only remains an active source of fear in combination with the latter: "vile westerners, using the stupid locals to impose an anti-national regime" and the rest of the bull. Still, the "threat" of democracy seems to be less of a potent fource than the threat of a civil war.
None of this matters with high oil prices - nothing matters with high oil prices (unless the local institutions are Nigeria-like or worse). But the moment oil bonanza falls off, it's not clear that the fears they are so industriously belaboring to create would hold.
In any case, as there is no evidence (yet?) that both Medvedev and Ivanov are going to stand in the same election. The two (actually, now three or four - they've just added a fake "democratic" party called "Civic Force" to the newish fake "sociallist" "Just Russia", the old fake "faschist" "Liberal Democratic Party of Russia" and the core government party "United Russia" ) "government" parties are going to create some illusion of the fight, but their success is untested, both as far as creating the illusion (most of the time they look for what they are: poorly made fakes) and not slipping into the real: in two of the recent local elections the "Just Russia" outpolled the 'United Russia" and in both cases the events came close to actual violence. Under the cicrumstances, it would not be too smart to let the activists actually campaign for the two front-runners for succession: actual partisan affiliations might emerge. Furthermore, Medvedev and Ivanov represent very different groups inside the government: no way they are going to let the voters to decide which of the two groups takes power. BTW, knowing a bit about M. Ivanov, if he decides that he should be the next boss, and I were, possibly in his way, I'd run - not for office, but out of the country that is (or else, my life expectancy would likely be expressed in months, not years).
