Any illusions that Russia had “evolved from a totalitarian regime into something like a democracy” were dispelled over the weekend, says the Los Angeles Times. Vladimir Putin told the United Russia party that he and Medvedev planned to swap jobs after the presidential elections next March. Putin was forced out of office in 2008 by a constitutional ban on serving more than two consecutive terms. Now that the presidential term has been extended from four to six years, Putin could remain in office until 2024, making him the longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin.
The Kremlin will “rustle up some candidates” to run against him, but it will “effectively be a one-horse race”, says The Times. The deal between the two men only underlines Putin’s ”cynicism, his contempt for democracy and an appetite for shamelessness that makes Silvio Berlusconi look coy”. It also “makes a mockery” of the ‘reset’ in relations between Washington and Moscow. “But few Russians seem to mind Putin’s monopolisation of power.”
Mikhail Gorbachev isn’t one of them. He warned in Novaya Gazeta that Russia faces six wasted years if Putin returns. The country, he said, required “fundamental change”. Other Russian newspapers were critical too – the Vedmosti business daily commented that the swap left “no other means of changing the regime in Russia than the Tunisian-Eygptian one”.
Putin has “often talked about his belief in reform and his desire to battle corruption and diversify the economy”, says Gideon Rachman in the FT. Yet the Putin years saw Russia turn into a petro-state in which those who crossed him ended up in prison or in exile. It’s hard to believe much will change. The prospect of Putin back in power for 20 years in a nation with the “tragic history of autocracy of Russia, is… sad and ominous”.