From Monday's Globe and Mail
If the two men who run Russia want to be seen by the world as democrats and not dictators, they are not doing a good job. On Wednesday, President Dmitri Medvedev announced his intention to amend the Yeltsin-era constitution to extend the presidential term to six years from four, igniting immediate speculation that the move would allow his mentor, Vladimir Putin, to return to the Kremlin for up to 12 years. The term of the Duma, Russia's parliament, would be lengthened as well.
Mr. Medvedev claimed that the changes are needed to ensure that the authority of the president and the Duma will be great enough to implement reforms.
Russia already has a highly disciplined and centralized governing apparatus. As president, Mr. Putin co-opted and cajoled legislators so effectively that the number of parties in the Duma dropped from nine in 1999 to four in 2007. United Russia, the slavishly loyal "party of power" of which Mr. Putin is now leader, is the largest by far.
The pliant legislature's power, meanwhile, pales in comparison with the president's, who can rule largely by decree if he chooses.
In short, Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev do not need more authority. Rather, the Russian President's proposal is a power grab, designed to further reduce democratic accountability in a country that sorely lacks it already.
The greatest tragedy may be that many Russians are likely to accept fewer elections without complaint. Russia's brief experience with all-out democracy in the 1990s was a chaotic spectacle that produced an embarrassing president in Mr. Yeltsin, a hopelessly divided Duma and political gridlock.
Unfortunately, after almost nine years of relative stability and prosperity under Mr. Putin and his successor, many Russians are willing to look past the two men's democratic failings.
Untrammelled power did not help past Russian rulers, from Tsar Nicholas II to Josef Stalin and Leonid Brezhnev, modernize the country's sclerotic economy or deal with its tremendous social problems.
Mr. Putin's and Mr. Medvedev's ability to deliver the goods to Russians is based more on high oil prices than on policy acumen.
Another discouraging development occurred last week. Mr. Medvedev echoed former leader Nikita Khrushchev's 1963 installation of nuclear weapons in Cuba, by greeting Barack Obama's election victory with an announcement that he would order nuclear-capable rockets to Kaliningrad, next to Poland, in response to the basing of U.S. missile-defence equipment there.
Mr. Medvedev is known to be a great lover of rock 'n' roll, especially as practised by Deep Purple and Pink Floyd. Lately, one could be forgiven for wondering if the Beatles have taken over his iPod. Back to the USSR, perhaps?