Seattle Times/AP
Putin to hang on to power, analysts say
By Henry Meyer
The Associated Press
President Putin is taking steps to retain a key role.
MOSCOW - To ensure there is no effective opposition in parliamentary elections next year, President Vladimir Putin and his allies have invented one.
Analysts say Putin has been secretly promoting bogus opposition parties - Fair Russia and Free Russia - designed to be hidden allies of the pro-Kremlin United Russia movement in the December 2007 ballot.
It's all part of what experts see as maneuvering by the former KGB officer to ensure he controls Russia from behind the scenes after he steps down as president after 2008.
In a three-hour televised "talk with the nation" last week, Putin indicated he expected to continue having a role setting government policy, telling his countrymen cryptically that "you and I will be able to exert influence on the life of our country and guarantee its development."
Leonid Sedov, a political analyst at the respected polling institute the Levada Center, said Putin intends to keep his hands on the reins even while nominally giving them up.
"To let go is dangerous for him and dangerous for his close circle, who don't want him to give up his authority," Sedov said.
Centralizing power
Since he took office in 2000, Putin has moved to centralize power and eliminate democratic checks and balances. Now he appears to be laying the groundwork to emerge as the force behind the throne.
Analysts think he might take over as leader of United Russia, giving him a political platform to play puppet-master. advertising
Olga Khrystanovskaya, a sociologist who is an expert on Putin's inner circle, said the distribution of power among the presidency, the prime minister's office and parliament could be changed to ensure the new president does not hold too much power.
"The collective leadership will remain; the successor will only be a creature of the 'politburo,' " she said, referring to the Communist Party committee that ran the country during the Soviet era.
Since jailing or exiling billionaires who were powerful under former President Boris Yeltsin, Putin's associates run major state companies that dominate the key oil and gas sector, and the Kremlin has established control over all TV and most print media.
There is no clear successor to Putin, 54, whose approval ratings are close to 80 percent.
Two main contenders
The two main contenders for that role are hard-line Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and technocrat Deputy Premier Dmitry Medvedev, both of whom have been tested on the electorate through regular appearances on state television.
But Putin has hinted he isn't limited to those choices.
The two new political groups seemingly tied to Putin aim to win over voters who have been backing ineffectual and divided opposition parties.
Fair Russia came into existence over the weekend in what some characterized as a shotgun merger of the Party of Life, Party of Pensioners and Homeland, a nationalist movement.
Sergie Mironov, the former leader of Party of Life, now heads Fair Russia, which claims it will compete against United Russia but also swears loyalty to the president.
Igor Mintusov, a political consultant who served as an adviser on the Fair Russia merger, said the new party hopes to capture 20 percent of the vote to United Russia's likely 40 percent, relegating the opposition communists to third place.
He said Putin had personally signed off on the merger. The other new party, Free Russia, plans to appeal to the fragmented liberal electorate - estimated at 15 percent.
Free Russia's leader, Alexander Ryabkin, said on the party's Web site it is counting on "moral support" from the government.
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