How A Pro Does It
Vladimir Putin is having too fun being “tsar,” but he still wants to look like a “democratically elected leader,” like Khrushchev, who was “democratically elected” by the Party.
The BBC tells everyone how he’s going to do it: Putin moves to extend political life
In the second surprise announcement in as many weeks, the Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it is “entirely realistic” that he will become prime minister after stepping down as president early next year.
Mr Putin is barred by the constitution from standing in presidential elections due to be held in March, having already served two consecutive terms as president.
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This scenario includes changing the constitution to transfer the executive powers currently enjoyed by the president to the new prime minister.
It also assumes that whoever succeeds Mr Putin as president will be a loyal ally without a power-base of his or her own who would not represent any threat to Mr Putin in his new role.
The person who fits that description well is the man president Putin nominated as prime minister in another surprise move two weeks ago – Viktor Zubkov.
Mr Zubkov was plucked from obscurity from his previous job as head of a financial investigation agency.
What Vlad is doing is putting a hand-picked flunky in as president, and then transferring all the power to the prime minister. This would be like making the US President a figure head and giving all of the real power to the Speaker of the House. This is how intelligent dictators do it.
4 comments
i thought cheney was an intelligent ditator.
He wasn’t smart enough to get around the willfulness of the Shrubbery. Putin is arranging direct control, not control through someone else.
Yeah, 2/3rds of the Duma for his party, plus him as Prime Minister, means that he could change the Russian Constitution to put all the powers into the Prime Minister’s office if his figurehead in the President’s office refuses to go along with him.
But from what I know of how things are in Russia right now, few people will object to that scenario. Putin is extremely popular, unlike our own Dear Leader. What does it say when the KGB now basically not only controls Russia but most Russians actually *like* it?
The best part is when he starts talking about the need for the changes because the last president concentrated too much power in the office. He won’t say it right out, but that will be the message.
The Hedgemony will do the same thing when there’s a Dem in the White House – talk about how anti-democratic the unified executive is. We all heard it when Clinton used the line item veto.
Putin has played the security card extremely well, and he learned a certain level of public relations awareness working in the commercial field in East Germany. Russians are ready for some calm, and to feel safe after recent turmoil. they like strong leaders.