Lawmakers back move to keep Putin in power

16 MORE YEARS?

MOSCOW • Constitutional changes allowing Vladimir Putin to run for president again in 2024 sailed through both houses of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday, raising the prospect he could clock up over three decades in the Kremlin.

Putin, 67, who has dominated Russia’s political landscape for two decades as either president or prime minister, made a dramatic appearance in the lower chamber a day earlier to argue that term limits were less important in times of crisis.

A former KGB officer, Putin is currently required by the constitution to step down in 2024 when his second sequential and fourth presidential term ends. But the amendment which he backed would formally reset his own presidential term tally to zero. Successors would face a two-term limit however.

The 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, on Wednesday backed the term reset for Putin, along with other amendments to the constitution, by 383 votes, in a final reading. Nobody voted against.

Hours later, the 170-seat Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, gave its approval by 160 votes to one.

“Vladimir Vladimirovich must have the right to run in new competitive nationwide elections,” said Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper house, calling the amendment timely. “We must recognize what was done by Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin for the country’s development in the last 20 years.”

If, as Putin critics expect, regional parliaments and the constitutional court give their blessing and the changes are backed in a nationwide vote in April, Putin would have the legal option to run for president in 2024.

Were he to do that, he could stay in office for another two back-to-back sixyear terms until 2036 at which point he would be 83 and have spent 36 years at the top of Russian politics.

Opposition activists have said they plan to organize protests as early as Friday. Their plans are complicated however by a government order which has banned public gatherings of more than 5,000 people until April 10 due to coronavirus-related risks.

Putin remains popular with many Russians, who see him as a source of stability, even as others complain that he’s been in power for too long.

Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov said he thought the changes had dealt a mortal blow to the country’s constitution.

“Russia has lost its constitution, which didn’t work anyway,” Gudkov wrote on social media. “The fig leaf has fallen off the regime and we can see who turned out to be beneath it.”