I will not pretend to know anything about the way the Russian government works (in theory or in practice), but based on the past I have to assume that this is part of a plan for Vladimir Putin to retain power past 2024. So, how does this work? Any idea? Does his proposal to devolve power from the Presidency indicate that he’ll just do what he did last time and get himself elected/appointed/designated to whatever office really holds the power?
I’ve got other questions about what a post-Putin Russia looks like, but I don’t know if this is the place.
That’s what I’ve been wondering. The article I read says this is so Putin can reduce the power of his successor, but wouldn’t he just want to keep things the way they are? What successor? Isn’t he just going to keep himself in place until he dies?
Linked article states that one of the new measures being implemented is removal of a rule that prohibits a president from serving more than two consecutive terms. Fortunate given that Putin’s second consecutive term ends in 2024.
There’s some weird term limit stuff going on that causes Putin to switch from being President to Prime Minister and back from time to time.
9 August 1999 – 7 May 2000 – Prime Minister
7 May 2000 – 7 May 2008 – President
7 May 2008 – 7 May 2012 – Prime Minister
7 May 2012 - Present – President
Looks like his time as President is coming to an end so he is making Prime Minister the more powerful office. I feel like I remember him doing the same thing in the other direction in 2012.
‘Commentators, analysts and some politicians concurred in 2008 and early 2009 that the transfer of presidential powers that took place on May 7, 2008, was in name only and Putin continued to retain the number one position in Russia’s effective power hierarchy, with Dmitry Medvedev being a figurehead or “Russia’s notional president”.’
That’s what has me confused. Why is Putin going through all these motions? He should just have the Russian Constitution rewritten so it allows the President to run for unlimited consecutive terms. That would actually be less blatant than these maneuvers he pulls every time his term in office nears an end.
But perhaps that’s the point. Putin may want to periodically demonstrate how much he’s in control of the Russian political and legal system.
Yea, that is what everyone says, and I assume is correct. However, no one seems to be able to lay out an “explain like I am 10 years old” diagram of how this will do that.
NOTE: This post contains some pure random speculation and Wild-Ass-Guessing on my part.
According to the report, Putin seems to be moving to increase the power of the Prime Minister-ship at the expense of the Presidency, which would be totally in keeping with his previous use of “Tandemocracy” (as already noted and linked to by Lance Turbo). So that’s in keeping with his previous actions and makes sense.
The odd part is the suggestion that he’s also contemplating eliminating term limits for the Presidency. If he’s planning to eliminate term limits for that office so he can just keep on being President, why would he be reducing the power of the office? (Unless maybe he genuinely believes that reducing the power of any one man is what would be best for Russia, and wants to be a Russian Cincinnatus and…HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Sorry, I just wanted to inject a little levity into an otherwise serious post.)
What occurred to me (this is the WAG part) is that maybe Putin is in fact planning to complete hollow out the power of the Russian Presidency, making the office something like that of the President of Ireland, with all substantive powers now held by the Prime Minister–who would once again be Vladimir Putin–who would govern as long as he held the support of his party in the Duma (Putin’s “party” is United Russia, and as best as I can tell, it’s “ideology” and “platform” are “Whatever Putin says!”). So–maybe–the reason for eliminating term limits for the Presidency is just so Putin won’t have to bother with periodically finding a new [del]stooge[/del] ceremonial figurehead who will be content with the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and doing whatever “his” Prime Minister “advises” him to do. Finding someone Putin can trust to stick with the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and not, say, try to go over the Prime Minister’s head and directly appeal to the Russian people during some political crisis, could be something Putin doesn’t want to have to periodically do all over again. And after all, if “President of Russia” becomes a purely ceremonial post, well, who cares about term limits? Elizabeth II has been Queen for over 65 years now, but nobody thinks she has amassed some unbreakable grip on power–she has no real power, never has, and never will even if she lives to be a 119 years old.
Gorbachev is still alive which amazes me. One of the most important figures of the latter part of the 20th century is still around twenty years into the 21st century yet in relative obscurity.
Because as someone becomes more powerful they simultaneously become more vulnerable.
If Russia operates as an authoritarian government in control of a society that has more or less accepted that life in Russia is shit but ‘Hey this is Russia and we’ve got a long authoritarian tradition and a tradition of large scale kleptocracy - whaddya gonna do?’…well, that’s one thing. People know Putin’s the kingpin, but they figure that the whole system is rotten and what’s the difference between Putin and someone else, they figure.
But if someone like Putin consolidates power, then they become more of a target (Maduro is a case in point). In authoritarian societies like Russia, there’s almost always some degree of tension at the top of the government and tension from underneath. People like Putin survive by making sure he has alignment at the top. If he doesn’t, if there’s a break at the political level, the risk is that protest movements and would-be revolutionaries view that as weakness and take to the streets.
I’m sensing that some people with power in Russia aren’t exactly on the same page with Putin - or that if they are, Putin fears that they might not be for much longer. Putin has to stay in power to survive. He’s committed too many financial crimes, too many murders, made too many enemies. He will do whatever it takes to survive but even Putin knows he can’t just go out and slaughter people and murder all of his enemies in plain view.
Well, what would be so great about declaring himself Tsar and “get it over with”? You think he should just be more honest with us or something? You think he’s wasting some valuable resource by playing this dance?
It’s not like tsars didn’t have lower nobility and the peasants to deal with.