Izvestia: “Another Conspiracy Falls”
Vitaly Ivanov, deputy director of the Centre for Current Politics in Russia
"The next [presidential] elections in the Russian Federation will take place in 2012. I think that everyone should perform his duty in his place. There is no need to fuss about what will happen in 2012. Let's make it to that time, and then decide," Vladimir Putin said on Thursday when replying to a question about the possibility of his running in the next election.
That phrase erased numerous opposition forecasts of Russia's political future and the Prime Minister's plans.
Exactly what did these forecasts say?
First, they said Putin was tired of being prime minister and wanted to resign.
Second, they alleged he wanted to run in early presidential election.
And last, they claimed that President Dmitry Medvedev had proposed increasing the presidential term from four to six years to allow Putin to reclaim the presidency in 2009.
However, it has always been clear that Putin will not abandon the post of Prime Minister, there will be no early presidential elections, and the amended constitutional norm will be applied only in 2012. But the smart guys who claimed to know all the Kremlin's secrets, and the general public who willingly accepted their tall tales as serious analysis, refused to believe the obvious.
These forecasters, who have long made barefaced lies the key principle of their professional operation, continue to spin the yarn, and their audience is unlikely to decrease. You can do nothing about it. A kind of censorship might be useful in this situation, but who would dare allow it in a free country?
The people don't like simple explanations. They seem boring when they want action. There is also the traditional suspicion of everything the authorities do, and the common belief that they must be hiding something.
After Putin's Q & A session, I talked with friends who can be described as politically aware citizens. All of them agree that now they see that there will be no early presidential elections and that Putin will remain Prime Minister. But why amend the Constitution, and why do it now? There's no smoke without fire, they said.
The explanation is indeed simple. To begin with, when should the Constitution be amended? Directly before the elections, or in 2010? Why then and not now?
It was first said that the presidential term is too short somewhere in the 1990s. It took time for the decision to mature, and now we have made it, so why put off its implementation for later? Better use the time to approve the amendment and settle the inevitable debates, because someone will definitely appeal the decision in the Constitutional Court, even though the court doesn't have the competence to consider the appropriateness of amendments to the Constitution.
This is not a short-lived intrigue but a strategic initiative. We need to increase the stability of our top authorities in the long run, and also to increase their planning horizons.
You are not convinced? I'm not surprised. It's much easier to think there was a "secret plan" that was abandoned because the situation has changed. This sounds like a reasonable explanation to many. Besides, there are people who can break down imaginary conspiracies to the smallest detail.
When things have been said out loud, you cannot do anything to change them. However, you can - and should - point out that only illiterate, incompetent and susceptible people can be duped by such "opposition" politicking. Nobody likes this, so there is still hope they will come to their senses.
