Potentially this paves the way for a man credited with having brought stability to Russia, and for restoring much of its lost superpower status, to remain entrenched in power in the Kremlin until 2024.
Speaking during the annual conference of the ruling United Russia party, which is basically the old Communist Party of the Soviet Union with a new name and emblem, Prime Minister Putin accepted President Dmitry Medvedev’s proposal to allow him to run in presidential elections scheduled for March next year. Mr Putin then announced that he would appoint
Mr Medvedev as Prime Minister if he is successful in his bid to reclaim the presidency of Russia.
The announcement by Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev ended speculation among Western commentators about whether the former would return to occupy the most powerful position within the Russian government – speculation which started almost from the day when Mr Putin, constitutionally barred from running for a third term in office, handed over the presidential reins to his protégé Mr Medvedev in 2008 and took up the position of Prime Minister instead.
While Western politicians and Western media have often referred to the “Putin-Medvedev tandem” – in which Russia is governed equally by both politicians-the reality of the political situation in Russia since 2008 has not been lost on Kremlinologists.
Russia, to the approval of its citizens, has historically been run in accordance with a patrimonial system. Commenting on the Russian attitude to a strong leader, a contemporary Russian historian, DM Volodikhin, has said: “The true sovereign must be a defender of the orthodox faith, a harsh but just ruler. As long as the genuine tsar, emperor, general secretary, president does not violate the image of ‘genuine sovereign’ attributed to him by popular consciousness… he can live in peace.”
In taking over the Russian presidency in 2008, Mr Medvedev knew what the script was and his role in this: keep the seat warm until Mr Putin could again run for President and allow him, during this time, to be the top power-broker in Russia.
Now that Mr Putin is almost guaranteed to return as President in next March’s presidential elections, what can Russia and the rest of the world expect? In short, nothing new because Mr Putin has been the de facto leader of Russia for the last three and a half years.
On the domestic front, Mr Putin will continue to try and diversify the Russian economy while at the same time building up the strength of the Russian armed forces. In terms of foreign policy, Mr Putin will continue to integrate many of the former Soviet republics into Russia, rebuild relations with Soviet-era allies such as Cuba, Syria and Vietnam, strengthen Moscow’s claim to a vast part of the North Pole and maintain a belligerent and suspicious attitude towards the West, in particular over Washington’s plans to build a sea-based missile defence shield off the coast of Romania and Bulgaria which the Kremlin believes is aimed at Russia.
