Posted on 01/20/2020 10:34:28 AM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
The Russia watcher community is up in arms. On Jan. 15, in his state-of-the-nation address to the Russian parliament, President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly proposed a series of constitutional changes that appear to strengthen the role of parliament and elevate the status of the prime minister in the political system.
The surprise is understandable. Changing the Constitution is something we would expect from Putin: after all, how else would he stay in power beyond his second term that ends in 2024? But there are less roundabout ways of getting there — scrapping the two-term limit on the presidency is one.
Given the advanced state of Russia’s autocratic malaise, even simply appointing Putin president for life would have been met with an enthusiastic ovation from the rubber-stamp parliament.
Instead, Putin has proposed to empower the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, to appoint the prime minister, who is currently appointed by the president with the Duma’s overridable consent, as well as all the other ministers in the federal government. The purpose is clear — to strip the president of some of the key powers of that office.
Putin added to the confusion by proposing a constitutional role for the State Council, the consultative body made up of regional governors and several other high officials, raising more questions about his exit strategy. Will he be prime minister, or, as head of the State Council become a Nazarbayev-like father-of-the-nation figure who leaves the scene only to remain the puppet master in the political shadows?
It doesn’t really matter. If Putin is determined to stay, he’ll find a way to stay. But his proposed reforms are a step in the right direction, for they chip away at the virtually unlimited powers of the Russian presidency.
Political centralization has historically served as a major impediment to Russia’s democratization. There was a moment in the early 1990s when Russia seemed to be edging towards a true separation of powers. However, before the system of checks and balances was properly institutionalized, then-President Boris Yeltsin unleashed tanks against his parliamentary detractors. The standoff between the president and parliament in the fall of 1993 paved the way for the adoption of the current Constitution with its vastly strengthened presidential powers. It was that Constitution that put Russia on its relatively short path to Putin’s authoritarianism.
The changes proposed by Putin are too cosmetic to fundamentally undo the damage wrought by the 1993 Constitution. He pointedly argued that he was not at all trying to create a parliamentary republic in Russia; such a form of government, Putin said, would not allow Russia to “develop normally” or even “stably exist.”
On that point, he was certainly wrong. If there is an important factor that has impeded Russia’s normal development or stable existence, it has been the concentration of political power in the hands of dictators.
But even the modest reforms that Putin has called for will help put in place a framework that will in theory allow for better checks and balances in the system. The president evidently hopes that by spreading the power, he will have more opportunities to pull the right strings if he ever actually decides to retire. That may be true. But once he passes from the scene altogether, the checks and balances could well continue checking and balancing on their own, without Putin’s invisible hand.
Only when Russia develops viable political institutions that impede over-concentration of power in the hands of a leader, however well-intentioned, will the country stand a fair chance of becoming a normal democracy.
It would be ironic if Putin had helped place Russia on that track, but Russia is known for its bitter ironies.
Russia is a thugocracy. Always was and will be. Amen.
Russians are great folks, often brilliant, but often are blockheads who need a strong hand to tell them what to do.
There was the Tsar, then there were Communist Party General Secretaries and now there are Presidents.
Sadly yes. Its men are drunkards and the population is collapsing as well. A huge part of the tax base goes to Putin and his friends.
I myself have predicted that Putin would seek to restructure the government before his exit to ensure its sustainability in the absence of such a competent leader as himself.
The "Russia watchers" have simply projected villainy onto Putin so long that their brains start to explode when he doesn't act the part.
Like Stalin told his acolytes, who will run the country after I’m gone. You? He never put in place changes to ensure the long term survival of the Soviet Union.
Putin is taking no such chances with Russia.
Putin should just declare himself Czar.
Only Obama can make that appointment.
Putin is a gifted politician but Nicholas I, his nineteenth century Russian hero, he isn’t.
Exactly. I find many of the other comments on this thread simplistic and ignorant.
Under the 1993 Constitution, the Russian President is the sun around which everything orbits.
Changing that even to a limited extent is huge news in Russia.
Putin is constitutionally banned from being president after 2024, so surprise, he will now set up a powerful governing State Council with himself as its head.
“Will he be prime minister, or, as head of the State Council become a Nazarbayev-like father-of-the-nation figure who leaves the scene only to remain the puppet master in the political shadows?”
I would bet on the latter.
It didn’t take long for the Putin Fanboy Club to show up.
Why not just eliminate term limits? With United Russia’s supermajority in the Russian Parliament, there would be no obstacle to the change.
It was done in China.
Thank God I was born in the USA!
“” “” Under the 1993 Constitution, the Russian President is the sun around which everything orbits.”” “”
That’s a very important and largely overlooked point. Yeltsin usurped power degrading lawmakers and justices to the level of circus monkeys.
He killed thousands of people protesting it in process not to count lawmakers he shelled inside congress to stop his impeachment hearing.
Not even USSR did any of the above post-Stalin.
During his presidency average incomes decreased ten times comparing to already not so great Soviet level. Effective unemployment was 60%. There was a civil war in Caucasus killing tens of thousands and displacing a million people.
They say about ‘corrupt Putinists fleecing foreign investors’ hinting it was different under Yeltsin. Are they for real? There was no law and order under Yeltsin at all.
For some reason media was silent on all of the above.
They were talking about how good a Democrat Yeltsin was and how he is presiding over a vibrant emerging democracy without mentioning other details.
Now Putin introduces term limits and strips presidency of dictatorial powers moving some responsibilities to Congress and they are screaming ulterior motives and bloody murder.
I find annoying when they say:’Russians are lasting for a Czar’ or ‘They don’ t understand a republic’.
Gorbachev presidency and early post-Soviet period proved otherwise. Russian democracy was being destroyed from the outside by violent brutal methods. Yeltsin was simply a Clinton’s puppet.
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