Russia's constitution is set to change, to its former president's advantage, by Biodun Iginla @ BBC News and @ the Economist

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/1797595-russias-constitution-is-set-to-change-to-its-former-presidents-advantage-by-biodun-iginla-bbc-news-and-the-economist

by Biodun Iginla, news analyst for BBC News and the Economist. Research by Maria Ogryzlo in Moscow, and by Moira Tamayo in Puerto Rico
AFP
RUSSIA’S constitution is sacred, Vladimir Putin always insisted when he was president. No, he would not amend it to remain in office beyond 2008, despite sycophantic urgings for him to scrap the limit of two consecutive presidential terms that meant he had to step aside. It seems, however, that Mr Putin and his henchmen may have hit upon a way of honouring his promises, while making it possible for him to reclaim his old job almost immediately.

In May, Mr Putin installed Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, and became prime minister himself; now Mr Medvedev is apparently going to change the constitution for him. In his first—and conceivably last—presidential state-of-the-nation address Mr Medvedev said that he wanted to extend the presidential term from four years to six. The Kremlin then submitted the relevant legislation to parliament and three days later, on Friday November 14th, the Duma, the lower house, passed the bill on its first reading.

This would not amount to a reform of the constitution, Mr Medvedev insisted; rather it was merely a clarification. Before the change becomes law, it must also be approved by the upper house and by two-thirds of Russia’s regional legislatures. But since these bodies, like the Duma, are controlled by the Kremlin, their acquiescence will be automatic.



Russia’s post-Soviet constitution has not been changed since it came into force in 1993. The Kremlin’s ostensible argument for doing so now is that, to implement reform in a country as big and complex as Russia, a president needs a longer term. The new six-year rule would not apply to Mr Medvedev’s current term; but the overall limit for his successors would in effect become 12 years. (The term for parliamentarians is also to be extended, from four years to five).

The question is, why the rush? Mr Medvedev’s hasty manoeuvre is reminiscent of the changes made to Russia’s governance arrangements in 2004, after the terrorist outrage at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. Then, Mr Putin scrapped gubernatorial elections in Russia’s regions. The explanation favoured by many in Moscow now is the same as the real reason in 2004: to cement Mr Putin’s grip on power.

There no longer seems to be much doubt, as there was when Mr Putin first took up his new and nominally inferior prime-ministerial post, about where power truly lies in Moscow. Mr Putin’s highly visible involvement in the summer war in Georgia, and his pivotal role in the government’s response to the financial crisis, have made it clear that Mr Medvedev remains essentially an aide.

Mr Putin’s problem is an excess of accountability. As president, he was insulated from public anger and disappointment by the government: he relied heavily on the old Russian myth of the good tsar (responsible for everything that goes right) and the bad advisers (responsible for everything that doesn't). As prime minister, he is directly responsible for the management of the economy—at a time when the falling oil price and the drying up of international credit threatens seriously to undermine it.

The potential consequences are not only a worry for Mr Putin. The entire highly lucrative system of government over which he presides relies on his personal popularity and authority. Mr Medvedev, meanwhile, may not be a weighty enough figure to face down publicly the discontent, among both the greedy elites and the wider population, that the financial crisis may eventually cause. The constitutional changes could solve both problems: there is speculation in Moscow that Mr Medvedev could use them as a reason to call a snap presidential poll, perhaps as early as next year—in which Mr Putin could be a candidate.

So the term-limit ruse may be best understood as an unusual Russian form of anti-crisis measure. If that is indeed the course that Mr Putin and Mr Medvedev pursue, it is unlikely to encounter much resistance among the electorate: voters would doubtless again be presented with a highly limited choice of candidates and swayed by propagandistic television coverage.

There is at least a small risk, however, that some in Russia ’s ruling caste might feel uneasy about the shenanigans. The speech in which Mr Medvedev advocated the reforms was timed to coincide with the presidential election in America. But compared with the drama of Barack Obama’s victory, the spectacle of an ersatz president urging the gerrymandering of his country’s constitution made Russia look backward, nervous, slightly pathetic. Even some of those whose main concern is the revival of Russian greatness, and the cultivation of international respect, might be starting to worry about that.