After months of speculation about how he could manage to stay in power after relinquishing presidential office, President Putin yesterday clarified his intentions by announcing he will head his party's list in December's elections to Russia's Duma parliament.
The announcement stunned and delighted the conference of his United Russia party. It raises the possibility of a fundamental constitutional change in which the functions of the presidency would be reduced and those of the prime minister enhanced so that Mr Putin could indeed hold on to power while changing office.
This is a characteristically crafty solution to the political riddle that has consumed Russia this year about what Mr Putin will do when his second term as president ends next year. He has continually repeated that he will adhere to the constitutional ban on seeking a third successive term. Mr Putin's appointment last month of his nondescript but capable long-time ally Viktor Zubkow as prime minister contained a clue to this plan, insofar as it might allow Mr Zubkow become a compliant one term or interim president pending Mr Putin's return to that office after a break. But power, once lost, is not easily regained and once achieved, is not easily relinquished.
The alternative plan now in prospect certainly requires the additional two conditions suggested by Mr Putin yesterday. "United Russia must win the election and a decent, capable and modern person with whom I work as a team should be elected president", he told the party gathering. There is no doubt at present that the first condition could be easily achieved. The United Russia party was founded by him after he won the 2000 presidential election and enjoys strong majority support - 56 per cent of voters according to the latest opinion poll against 18 per cent for the next strongest party, the communists. The party seems certain to do well in the forthcoming election, given Mr Putin's widespread appeal, which is based on seven years of prosperity and the restoration of national pride after the country's humiliating loss of international status in the 1990s. It is likely to secure the two-thirds majority necessary to change the constitution.
That prospect would make the search for a suitable presidential candidate easier. Constitutional change towards a more parliamentary system would confer greater legitimacy on the Russian power system, without Mr Putin losing any of the influence he currently enjoys. Given the overweaning strength of his party and the weakness of civil society it would probably not upset the power system's centralism or its indifference to basic democratic rights. Russia could therefore avoid the kind of political and constitutional hiatus that has stalled effective governance in neighbouring Ukraine, where there is a more equal division of powers between president and prime minister. In such political systems a great deal depends on the ability of parties to deliver majorities. Putin's Russia would not suffer that drawback.