Vladimir Putin has crafted a far better job for himself when he steps down from the presidency than Tony Blair managed on leaving Downing Street. He has found a way to sidestep constitutional limits that Pakistan’s President Musharraf can only envy. But then, in devising a formula for eternal political life, President Putin has all the advantages of presiding over a quasi-democracy in which he pulls the strings.
For years, as he approached the end of the two consecutive terms that the Constitution allows him, Putin has been looking for an attractive berth. He has never said so outright, but the assumption has been that it would have to be one in which he could conserve his political power and retain the ability to return as president, after the required term out of office.
The head of nebulous think-tanks as yet to be created, Mayor of St Petersburg (improbably) or something at Gazprom — all kinds of suggestions have whirled by. Putin’s announcement yesterday that he had chosen the prime ministership as the vessel for the next stage stunned Russia. But in its bald determination to hold on to power it is entirely consistent with his every move.
If the plan comes off, he will be an extraordinarily powerful prime minister, ruling in parallel with a weak president. When Viktor Zubkov, a low-profile politician, older and greyer than Putin, was named Prime Minister two weeks ago, Putin’s motives were unclear. The move was a surprise to many (and, we can assume, to the two men previously considered the leading candidates to succeed Putin as president). Now we can see the full plan: Putin will swap jobs with Zubkov for a term, and then swap himself back into the presidency.
Can any political plan be so neat? There must be a sliver of uncertainty about whether Putin can pull this off. Not in whether the United Russia party chooses him to head its list; we can take that as a given. Nor in whether it then wins the elections; with Putin at its head, and his popularity so high, victory seems certain.
But there must be a fraction more doubt about whether he can insert a pliable candidate as president — and one who would be content for Putin to remain prime minister. Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev, deputy prime ministers, were thought the front-runners until the appointment of Zubkov and cannot be ruled out. No stooge, however tame, can be relied on not to turn on his patron when given the authority to do so.
If Putin’s plan does come good, it promises Russia stability, of an authoritarian sort. But he will have debased the constitution further by treating it so flexibly. This is not democracy. Yet Russians may say that this is exactly what they want — and opinion polls, even if an imperfect guide, suggest that is right.
But this is a recipe for perpetuating the aggrieved, paranoid, Cold War mentality that has seemed to underpin recent Russian antagonism against the West. It is not the route to a modern, prosperous future.
"The Times"
