Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Putin to Medvedev: I am on Top ONLY

President Vladimir Putin’s February 8 speech on Russia’s development strategy through to 2020 and his final annual president press conference on February 14, together with the speech that his designated successor, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, delivered to the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum on February 15, have provided fresh grist for speculation about the likely configuration of power following Medvedev’s virtually certain victory in March 2 presidential election and Putin’s presumed accession to the post of prime minister. While nothing can be stated definitively, the addresses by Putin and Medvedev, both in form and substance, strengthened the sense that a transfer of political power from the post of president to the post of prime minister is in the offing.

As a number of observers have noted, Putin’s speech on Russia’s development plans was noteworthy – if for nothing else – for sounding much less like a valedictory than a speech by a national leader who plans to be in charge for a good while longer. Indeed, while describing the problems and failures of governance of the 1990s and trumpeting the putative successes of his own presidency over the last eight years, Putin laid out a series of ambitious goals for the country over the next dozen years.

[...]

In other words, Putin’s comments sounded like those of a prospective head of state while Medvedev’s sounded like those of a prospective head of government.


I do believe that jsut confirms that.

No comments:

Post a Comment