Translated material
Kremlin five-year plan
A Just Russia still wants to extend the presidential term
The discussion about increasing the presidential term has been revived by A Just Russia . The head of the “Socialist Revolutionary” faction in the State Duma, Nikolai Levichev, promised that by the fall “this issue will be ripe.” “I don’t see any big legal problems to prepare these proposals,” Mr. Levichev noted. And the leader of A Just Russia, head of the Federation Council Sergei Mironov said yesterday that the State Duma can legislatively increase the presidential term by the end of this year. This decision will apply to the head of state elected in 2012.True, these proposals are still quite vague. In any case, the head of the Duma “Socialist Revolutionaries” found it difficult to even say exactly whether the head of state’s tenure in office could be increased to five or seven years. At the same time, Mr. Levichev called it “expedient” to settle on a moderate option - a five-year presidency while maintaining the existing constitutional ban on running for this position more than two times in a row.
This project looks quite modest compared to the grandiose plans that Sergei Mironov voiced a year ago. He then proposed to simultaneously extend the presidential term to five years and allow a third term. The head of the party did not hide the fact that the amendments were proposed personally for the current head of state, Vladimir Putin, so that he could stay in office for a total of 15 years. At the same time, Mr. Mironov assured that his project “was not agreed upon with anyone,” but was dictated solely by “the dictates of the times and the manifestation of common sense.”
The Kremlin really hastened to disown those proposals, but Sergei Mironov did not refuse them, saying only that the corresponding amendments to the Constitution would be made after the 2008 elections.
At the same time, the current head of state himself, in July last year, at a meeting with journalists from the G8 countries, spoke very positively about the idea of increasing the presidential term: “Four years is quite a short period, it seems to me that for today’s Russia five, six or seven years - “This is quite acceptable, but the number of terms should still be limited.”
Since then, Mr. Putin has made another important statement regarding this issue, namely, he proposed to “space out” the parliamentary and presidential campaigns. Increasing the presidential term to five years would allow this task to be accomplished without passing unnecessary bills. True, according to generally accepted world practice, the new rules of the political game would not affect the duration of office of the newly elected Mr. Medvedev. Therefore, in 2011-2012, the country would have to strain for the last time, choosing parliamentarians and a president at intervals of three months. But in 2015, Russians would have calmly voted for State Duma deputies, postponing the election of the head of state until 2017. This prospect seems especially interesting in light of the fact that many experts see Vladimir Putin’s future return to the presidency as quite realistic. Likewise, the “Socialist Revolutionary” initiative, they believe, in connection with the above considerations, is both timely and not without a chance of success. “Levichev has enough authority from Sergei Mironov to come up with such initiatives, so, naturally, this proposal has been agreed upon,” Leonid Polyakov, head of the department of general political science at the Higher School of Economics, shared this opinion with a Vremya Novostey correspondent. “But now I would like to see a broad public discussion with the participation of the parliamentary majority, because for now this initiative comes from a minority, and there may be some kind of jealousy on the part of United Russia - they were not the first to raise this topic.”
“The question of the reality of these projects depends on whether both the new and old inhabitants of the Kremlin will like them,” political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin told a Vremya Novostey correspondent. - From this point of view, it is characteristic that the initiative was also supported by (First Deputy Prime Minister - Ed. ) Sergei Ivanov, who, together with Mironov, is the loser in the bureaucratic competition for the new president. Therefore, their proposals can also be considered as a manifestation of loyalty towards Dmitry Medvedev. In addition, the country is now entering a kind of turbulence zone - there are many unresolved problems, the government has made many promises. And from this point of view, extending the presidential term makes it possible to survive this difficult period without significant political costs.”