Putin to return as Russian president

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday said he would stand for an historic third term as president after current Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev agreed to step aside for the 2012 polls.

Putin could stay in power until 2024, by which time he would be 72

In a carefully-choreographed job swap announced at a glitzy ruling party congress, Medvedev said he was ready to be prime minister under Putin, who has dominated Russia for over a decade and could now occupy the Kremlin to 2024.

The long-awaited announcement at the United Russia congress ended months of uncertainty over which of the men would stand and was greeted with howls of dismay by liberals who predicted that the country was heading for catastrophe.

“It would be correct for the congress to support the candidacy of party chairman Vladimir Putin, to the post of president,” Medvedev told the annual congress to cheers from thousands of delegates. Putin rapidly accepted the offer and made clear he wanted Medvedev to take his own job as prime minister. “For me this is a great honour,” Putin said in his acceptance speech.

Presidential elections are scheduled for March, with the United Russia candidate almost certain to win the country’s top job due to the emasculated state of the Russian opposition and the Kremlin’s control over the media.

The announcement marks a dramatic comeback to the country’s top post for the former KGB officer, who had left the Kremlin in 2008 after serving a maximum two consecutive terms and installed his former chief of staff as president.

Putin first became president when Boris Yeltsin dramatically resigned on New Year’s Eve 1999. He restored Russia’s stability during a period of high oil prices but was also accused of imposing an authoritarian regime.

After Putin left the Kremlin in 2008 to become prime minister, almost all observers assumed he retained the real power in Russia even as Medvedev embarked on a drive to modernise the country.

Under constitutional changes pushed forward by Medvedev and which many long suspected were aimed at further strengthening Putin, the new president will have a six-year mandate rather than four years as before.

This means that if Putin again served the two maximum consecutive terms, he could stay in power until 2024, by which time he would be 72 and the longest-serving Moscow leader since dictator Josef Stalin.