Posted on 10/03/2007 12:52:21 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Vladimir Putin has finally solved the intrigue of who will be Russia’s most powerful man should he obey the constitution and stand down as president next year. He will.
The president’s address to Monday’s congress of the dominant United Russia party appeared to be handwritten, in large script in a spiral-bound notebook, and Mr Putin scribbled changes up to the last moment. But his speech, met with jubilation in the sunlit atrium of a conference centre near the Kremlin, carried the clear message that he intends to remain Russia’s key decision maker for years to come.
Less clear is in exactly what capacity Mr Putin will wield that influence. He announced one definite plan for the future and one slightly less definite one.
He definitely intends to head United Russia’s candidate list in December’s elections to the Duma, or lower house of parliament, run by proportional representation. And he said it was “entirely realistic” he might later become prime minister, provided United Russia won the Duma poll and a “decent, capable and modern person with whom I can work” was elected president next March.
That does not necessarily mean Mr Putin is about to become a member of parliament – oddly, Russia’s electoral rules do not require candidates on party lists to take up seats. Parties often field “star” candidates with no intention of actually becoming MPs.
Mr Putin does not even plan to become a member of the United Russia party. But his mere presence atop United Russia’s list could catapult its share of parliamentary seats from around half, as expected, to beyond the two-thirds required for it to be able to make constitutional changes.
Leading the party, in effect, to such a victory after an eight-year presidency that has seen Russia transformed from crumbling pauper to swaggering petro-power, would leave him with enormous political and moral authority.
Mr Putin then has perhaps three options. He could exercise influence outside any formal political position as de facto national leader, along the lines of China’s Deng Xiaoping.
He could become parliamentary majority leader, using his authority to control a pliable president – say, Viktor Zubkov, the grey 66-year-old Mr Putin made prime minister last month – and possibly return as president in 2012, as the constitution allows.
Third, and now most probable, Mr Putin could indeed become prime minister. Under Russia’s constitution, that post is selected by the president and confirmed by parliament. However, since Mr Putin will, in effect, choose the next president, he would have little difficulty securing the job.
Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Uralsib investment bank, says that with all of the important executive power in Russia in the hands of the president, a “Putin premiership would have to result in an upgrade” of the post of prime minister.
With a two-thirds majority in the Duma, United Russia could deliver the necessary constitutional changes for such an upgrade.
Mr Putin has always rejected altering the constitution so he could stand for a third consecutive presidential term. But tweaking the constitution to shift Russia from presidential to parliamentary democracy, perhaps with a prime minister drawn from the parliamentary majority, could be portrayed as a democratising step to give new weight to the legislature.
Mr Putin’s plans could also breathe life into United Russia, previously seen as an empty vessel whose only policy was loyalty to the Kremlin.
“We will get a real ruling party with all the minuses connected to that and all the pluses,” said Nikolai Petrov from the Carnegie Moscow Centre thinktank. Sergei Markov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin, said Mr Putin’s plans could turn United Russia into a force capable of dominating Russian politics for decades, as Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief ideologist, has proposed. Models frequently quoted are Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party or Sweden’s Social Democrats.
Russia’s marginalised opposition sees things differently. Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko party, called Mr Putin’s plans a return to a one-party state. Mikhail Kasyanov, sacked by Mr Putin as prime minister in 2004 and now an opposition presidential hopeful, said Mr Putin had found a way to serve a third presidential term in all but name.
“In April I forecast that Mr Putin would not leave power,” he said. “Today he’s taken the decision on how he plans not to leave power.”
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Boost for PM’s chance of landing top job
He is short, stern, and barks orders like the Soviet state farm director he once was. But is Viktor Zubkov, made prime minister in a surprise move last month, Russia’s next president?
President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he might become premier next year – and remain Russia’s de facto leader – greatly boosts the chances of the little-known 66-year-old taking the top job, albeit with curtailed powers. His age, and fealty to Mr Putin – his 1990s boss in St Petersburg – could make him a suitably biddable president for Prime Minister Putin.
State TV news was already making Mr Zubkov look like a candidate, combining populism with Soviet-style brusqueness.
He was shown in rural Penza last week talking milk yields with a farm director and instructing the agriculture minister to protect Russian farming from imports. Next, Mr Zubkov popped up in a grocery shop, handing chocolate bars to a pensioner, and at a meat stall, nodding as another pensioner complained about housing costs.
Mr Zubkov has brought a Soviet feel to government meetings. He ordered one hapless official, addressed as “comrade”, to be despatched to Russia’s far east to sort out a failure to distribute earthquake aid. And he railed against VTB, a state bank, for refusing a loan to a Penza paper mill, which borrowed from a Czech bank instead.
Some suggest Mr Zubkov’s appointment aimed to persuade ordinary voters, particularly older ones – who have yet to see much of Russia’s new-found oil wealth – that the government takes their concerns seriously.
Russians believe Mr Zubkov could be president. The day after he became premier, the Levada Centre, a pollster, found 85 per cent had previously never heard of him, but 39 per cent believed he would succeed Mr Putin.
In another poll days later he trailed well behind the previous leading contenders, Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev. But Mr Putin’s speech may change all that.
Just sounds kind of dirty.
Less so than, “Putin handles himself.”
But seems all the rage with despots these days to declare or otherwise make themselves rulers for life ala Mugabe, Chavez, Putin, soon to be President for Life Hillery.
Less so than, “Putin handles himself.”
But seems all the rage with despots these days to declare or otherwise make themselves rulers for life ala Mugabe, Chavez, Putin, soon to be President for Life Hillery.
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