Moscow abuzz with Putin term talk

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Neil Buckley in Moscow
Will Vladimir Putin seek a third term as Russian president? Moscow's political world is abuzz with speculation that he might - but not immediately.
Putin, so the theory goes, would not stand again when his second four-year term expires next March. To do so would require changing the constitution, which limits presidents to two consecutive terms, and could look undemocratic.
Instead, say analysts, business people and journalists, Putin could come back in 2012, as the constitution allows. Or the next president could stand down early because of "ill health". Another scenario is that the constitution could be changed early in the next presidency to allow longer presidential terms (an idea already being discussed), triggering elections in which Putin returns.
The identity of Russia's next president dominates Russian political debate.
The Kremlin and Mr Putin have repeatedly denied he will stay for a third term, and few in Moscow believe he will. But most Russians - and, apparently, a powerful Kremlin faction - would like him to.
Mr Putin has said only that he intends to retain unspecified "influence", with a variety of possible next moves mooted, from prime minister or Gazprom chairman to head of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.
One wealthy Russian businessman says Mr Putin does not want to be seen putting himself in the same category as Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus or Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan. They both changed constitutions to allow multiple presidential terms - or for life in Mr Nazarbayev's case.
"Putin enjoys being in the same company as Bush, Schröder and Chirac," his businessman says. "He doesn't want to be in the company of Lukashenko, Chávez [of Venezuela] and [Iran's] Ahmadi-Nejad."
A western banker with good Moscow connections agrees.
"Putin likes attending the G8 summit," he says. "But he could never come to the G8 having changed the constitution to be there." Putin will stay on, he adds, "only if there is a crisis".
Alexander Rahr of the German Council on Foreign Relations, who dined with the president in 2000 after publishing a Putin biography, says the president made a pledge.
"He said, 'I will leave office. I may be elected a second time, but I will leave. Because I want to transform the position of president away from a tsar …. I can't break the law, because then others after me will do it,' says Rahr.
Yet many believe an internal Kremlin conflict is raging between what Alexei Venediktov, editor of Ekho Moskvy radio, calls a "constitutional party" and a "third term party". The latter, led by Igor Sechin, the shadowy Kremlin deputy chief of staff, is said to be desperate to see Putin stay to preserve unity among the Russian elite and ensure his current entourage keeps power.
Some analysts suggest the third term party may be ready to provoke a crisis to persuade Putin to stay.
A compromise, however, could be the succession of an interim president who is followed after a suitable period by Mr Putin's return. Interestingly, Sergei Mironov, speaker of Russia's upper house and a Putin ally, who in March called publicly for a Putin third term, declared suddenly last month that the issue of a third term was a "closed question".
But Mr Mironov supported lengthening the presidential term from four to up to seven years, which would require a constitutional change. Then, interviewed by foreign reporters last week, Mr Putin backed Mr Mironov's proposal for longer terms, to a chorus of parliamentary support.
Constitutional experts see little time to introduce longer terms before next March's elections. But a new president could begin work on constitutional changes that could provide a pretext for new elections in, say, 2010.
"Today, the most likely thing seems that after a short time there will be new elections, and [Putin] will start a third term, either after four years or after two," says Venediktov.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta, an independent newspaper, recently agreed: "The option of a 'technical president' who will take the fire upon himself in 2008 …. is becoming more and more plausible. Later he will quietly step aside, having prepared Vladimir Putin's triumphant return."
Finding a "technical president" may be tricky. Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev, the two first deputy prime ministers most often mooted as successors, seem unlikely to fall on their swords.
Enter, perhaps, Valentina Matviyenko, St Petersburg governor and Putin loyalist. She is seen as a "dark horse" candidate rumoured last year to have offered to serve one presidential term then stand aside for Mr Putin. Reports last month of a murky "assassination attempt" on Ms Matviyenko - why anyone should want to kill her is unclear - were seen by some analysts as Kremlin-backed political technologists attempting to create a presidential aura around her.
Yet this could all still be a smokescreen. The Russian businessman says Putin never allows anyone to guess his actions.
"Whenever he has an appointment to make, he calls everyone in and asks for their recommendations. Then he chooses somebody else entirely."