Putin's predictable prime ministerial power grab

By Michael J.W. Stickings

What Putin wants, Putin gets, right? And what he wants is power -- and to stay in power. His boy Medvedev won last month's presidential "election" -- and an election in quotation marks is exactly what it was -- and now, soon to become prime minister to (and in control of) President-"elect" Medvedev, he's angling for even more:

With slightly more than a month to go before he is to step down, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears poised for a power grab.

The mighty United Russia party, which controls 315 of the 450 seats in the lower house of parliament, will ask Mr. Putin to become leader, its chief said yesterday.

The role could greatly enhance Mr. Putin's influence when he becomes prime minister.

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The news that United Russia will ask Mr. Putin to lead the party provided fresh speculation that he isn't keen to cede power to Mr. Medvedev, the protégé he groomed for years as an aide before giving him the nod last December to replace him.

Mr. Putin is constitutionally bound to step aside after eight years as president, but he has already agreed to serve as prime minister, a position that holds limited, mainly domestic, powers.

However, becoming leader of the pro-Kremlin United Russia would effectively give Mr. Putin control of Russia's lower house of parliament, or State Duma, given the party's massive majority.

Isn't Russian "democracy" awesome?

(For more reaction to Putin, see here.)