Friday, January 11, 2019

Does Russian President Putin Have A Retirement Plan?

President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Moscow in December. Kremlin.ru

Leonid Bershidsky, Moscow Times/Bloomberg: Putin's Retirement Plan Depends on Belarus (Op-ed)

To retain power, he is positioning himself as the leader of a closer union between Russia and its dependent neighbor.

President Vladimir Putin has more than five years left in office, but he must already contemplate his next move. The transition among Russia’s leaders is seldom smooth, so Putin is looking at ways to ensure his continued influence by forging a closer union with neighboring Belarus. A change in the Russian oil taxation regime has provided the opportunity for exploring this scenario.

The Russian constitution allows a president to serve only two consecutive terms. In 2008, rather than change the law and be ridiculed as the equal of Central Asian dictators, Putin ceded the presidency to a close ally, Dmitry Medvedev. But he hated playing second fiddle and disliked Medvedev’s openness to more cooperation with the U.S.; besides, trusting anyone with such a handover could be a bigger risk today, in a country increasingly run by the security apparatus. Simply going into retirement in 2024 is an even scarier option: Putin could never be certain of any personal security guarantees his successor might provide.

Read more ....

WNU Editor:  Russian President Putin is between a rock and a hard place. Many of those around him are expecting him to leave in 5 years, and if he should hint at staying beyond his term of office and/or changing the constitution that would permit him to run as President again, there will be a revolt. As for making an agreement with Belarus that would give some leverage for Putin to stay beyond 2024 as suggested by the above commentary .... it is not going to happen.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

He is one of the wealthiest men in the world, if not the wealthiest,and conceals monies offshore

Anonymous said...

Putin's retirement plan is to run for the American Presidency on the Democrat Party ticket.

Anonymous said...

Comrade you crazy? Stick with approved narrative..if you must drink so much and forget, check CNN to remind yourself

Anonymous said...

anon

your anti-Dem comment shows how stupid you are. It was Trump whom Putin met with, in secret, not too long ago...it is Trump, not the Dems, whom the FBI is tracking

Anonymous said...

You cannot call digging ditches and filling them in without purpose GDP.


The FBI being used by partisan hacks to track a political opponent is worthy of the old Soviet Union.

So the FBI is tracking Trump because of mid and upper level party hacks have agents do that work.

Don't tell me a putrid chud such as Rosenstein is a registered Republican. I could register as a Democrat and vote a straight Republican ticket. There is no proof that Rosenstein is a Republican. Registering Republican is as easy as a pirate ship raising the British, French or what every flag they want. Some have said politics is just war by other means. Rosenstein took it to heart and raises whatever flag he wants.

Anonymous said...

all all is a conspiracy and Putin did not really meet alone with Trump and sanctions that Trump did not want and getting out of Syria so Iran and Russia could support Assad...all the fault of Obama and Hillary...those dozen indicted folks done under horrible Mueller? simply framed and the courts framed and our guy trump is pure as the driven snow and all the lawsuitts (17 investigations) all of no significance... SUCKERS! DEPLORABLE LOW IQ DOLTS keep the gov closed even though the blame now on TRUMP and his party and our security goes down the tubes while vindicative
Trump whines like baby