Putin submits changes to law
Critics see effort to retain power
MOSCOW— Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday submitted to parliament a package of constitutional amendments reducing the power of the presidency while giving broad new authority to an advisory council that he leads.
The changes, which cover 21 pages, are widely seen as Putin’s attempt to secure his grip on power well after his current term ends in 2024.
The State Council — the advisory body that Putin chairs — is currently a gathering of regional and national leaders that has largely ceremonial powers. Under the proposed changes, the State Council’s role would for the first time be written into the constitution and a special federal law.
The council would have the power to “set the main directions of the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation and the priority areas of socio-economic development,” according to the draft.
“The State Council becomes something like a collective presidency,” said Andrey Kortunov, head of the Kremlin-founded Russian International Affairs Council. “It will be very important who heads it and how it’s formed.”
The draft specifies that the body would be formed by the president, although the proposed amendments give no indication how that process would take place. The draft also does not make clear whether the State Council would be subordinate to the presidency.
Putin has described the constitutional amendments as aimed at strengthening Russia’s democratic institutions. Over the weekend, he said that continuing the Soviet tradition of leaders for life would be bad for the country.
After Putin announced his proposed constitutional changes last week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his entire Cabinet promptly resigned, giving Putin a free hand to reappoint ministers or name new ones. That process is expected to start this week, though Putin has already named tax chief Mikhail Mishustin to succeed Medvedev.
Putin on Monday also removed the prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika. His removal indicated that Putin’s plans to shake up Russian government would extend beyond the Cabinet.
Chaika, a former justice minister and senior prosecutor since the late 20th century, is being moved to another, so far unspecified position, the Interfax news agency reported.
Taking over his powerful post as prosecutor general — roughly the equivalent of the attorney general in the United States, but not a Cabinet post — is Igor Krasnov, the deputy head of Russia’s version of the FBI, the Investigative Committee.
TERM LIMITS
Putin, 67, first became president when then-President Boris Yeltsin resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999.
The constitution now bars Putin from seeking a third consecutive term — though it allows presidents to serve two consecutive terms, take a term off and then seek two more consecutive terms. Putin has already done that; he served two four-year terms as Russia’s president, then served four years as prime minister. He is now in his second consecutive term as president and his fourth overall.
During Putin’s time as prime minister from 2008-12, he effectively remained in charge of Russia while his associate, Medvedev, served as a placeholder president. Under Medvedev, the terms for Russia’s president were lengthened from four to six years. Medvedev then declined to seek a second term as president.
Putin was elected president for six-year terms in 2012 and 2018. Medvedev served as his prime minister until he resigned last week.
The amendments offered by Putin include a provision to limit future Russian presidents to no more than two terms in total. Some commentators speculated that the proposed new rule was a sign that Putin could be engineering another swap with Medvedev but wants to legally limit his protege to just one sixyear term — his second overall.
Other analysts believe the amendment could effectively restart the clock on presidents, letting Putin stay in power through 2036 by counting his “first” term under the revised constitution as starting in 2024.
In 2018 Putin dismissed the notion that he would begin a six-year term as prime minister in 2024 and then seek the presidency again in 2030, when he would be 77.
RUSSIA FIRST
Putin’s amendments also include a proposal to give the constitution a clear priority over international law — a tweak seen as a reflection of the Kremlin’s irritation over the European Court of Human Rights’ rulings that held Russia responsible for human-rights violations.
Another proposed amendment says that top government officials aren’t allowed to have foreign citizenship or residence permits.
Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin hailed the suggested constitutional amendments as “historic,” after Putin’s description of them as offering “more power to the people.”
Parallel to lawmakers, a working group created by Putin will also consider the proposed changes before they are put to a vote.
Parliament has scheduled an initial vote on the changes for today, with full approval expected in the next few months.
Putin said that the constitutional changes need to be approved by the entire nation, but it wasn’t immediately clear how such a vote would be organized. Officials have said a vote will be held this spring, and approval is all but certain.
Russia’s leading opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, and other Kremlin foes have denounced Putin’s move as an effort to extend his rule after his term ends, but it didn’t immediately trigger any major protest. The vagueness of the proposed changes helped mute the public response, and the resignation of Medvedev, along with his Cabinet’s, has diverted attention from the suggested amendments.