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MOSCOW: Russia’s Vladimir Putin was to be confirmed Thursday as
prime minister, a day after his aide Dmitry Medvedev became
president in a power shift that raises questions over who will
really be in charge.
There was no doubt that Putin, 55, would win
parliamentary backing. His United Russia Party alone controls more
than two-thirds of seats.
Putin’s move to the premiership after eight
years as president completed a carefully choreographed scheme in
which his trusted protégé Medvedev, 42, was inaugurated president
on Wednesday.
The two have indicated they will rule as an
informal tandem, something unprecedented in Russia, where
overwhelming authority has traditionally rested with the Kremlin.
Following a grandiose inauguration ceremony in
the Kremlin’s golden Andreyevsky Hall, Medvedev’s first act as
president was to nominate his former boss for the prime minister’s
post.
The other decrees issued on his first day
concerned only housing and veterans and neither man gave any
indication of who will be in the new government.
“Some noted that for the first time there was
almost no clear future—except for the prime minister’s post, of
course,” the state-run Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote Thursday.
“Theories are being built and broken down,
cards shuffled this way and that, but there are still five aces in
the deck because the real transfer of power is still ahead,” the
daily added.
Putin remains popular among Russians who credit
him with the country’s economic revival on the back of massive
energy exports and a newly assertive role on the world stage.
But while he vows to cooperate closely with
Medvedev, both leaders have claimed major power for their respective
new offices, leading some analysts to predict a potentially unstable
partnership.
Many observers see the most likely outcome as a
broad continuation of Putin’s policies, but some believe
Medvedev, a former corporate lawyer, could soften Putin’s more
hard-line positions.
Medvedev is the youngest Kremlin leader for more
than a century and, unlike Putin or most other members of Russia’s
ruling elite, he has no known past in the KGB or other security
services.
In Medvedev’s brief Kremlin speech after being
inaugurated, he highlighted the need to bring Russians greater
“civil and economic freedom.”
Medvedev soon got his first taste of his vast
new powers when a military officer presented him Wednesday with a
briefcase that controls Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Under the constitution, Medvedev has the right
to fire his prime minister and dismiss the government at any time.
Following reforms by Putin, parliament has been hugely weakened and
provides little oversight.
However, now that Putin is starting a new career
as prime minister and leader of the ruling United Russia Party, that
may change. With two-thirds of votes in the legislature, United
Russia can in theory change the constitution.
-- AFP
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