2008 Woodie Awards
Putin accepts a new leadership role
Russian president will take control of the United Russia Party after term ends
By: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: World
MOSCOW - Vladimir Putin agreed yesterday to take command of the United Russia Party when he steps down as president, enhancing the power he will wield as prime minister and bolstering his platform for a potential return to the Kremlin.
At a party congress that mixed promises of a bright future with traditions from the communist era, more than 550 delegates unanimously approved Putin as chairman of Russia's most powerful political faction.
Speaking just three weeks before he will cede the presidency to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin said the move would help ensure that Russia's political bosses and bureaucrats functioned as a "single organism" for the good of the people.
"Today even more than before, we need the consolidation of political forces and the spiritual unity of our people," he told the congress in an exhibition center off Red Square.
Putin cast the move as a step toward European-style democracy, saying that for the head of a party to be prime minister is "a civilized, natural, traditional practice for democratic states."
But the analogy was not precise because in Russia, the prime minister is appointed by the president, unlike the European parliamentary democracy system in which the chairman of the leading party is generally chosen as premier.
Critics dismissed Putin's argument as a bid to lend legitimacy to a process engineered from the top down, saying it was more like a step backward toward Soviet times, when the Communist Party had no rival and its chief was the supreme leader.
Some analysts called Putin's decision the strategic maneuver of a control-minded leader determined to head off potential challenges, and said it would undermine Medvedev by boosting the authority of Putin and parliament.
In terms of imagery, Putin eclipsed Medvedev at the congress, staying firmly in the spotlight in his final weeks of an eight-year presidency marked by carefully choreographed events that have helped enhance his popularity.
At a party congress that mixed promises of a bright future with traditions from the communist era, more than 550 delegates unanimously approved Putin as chairman of Russia's most powerful political faction.
Speaking just three weeks before he will cede the presidency to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, Putin said the move would help ensure that Russia's political bosses and bureaucrats functioned as a "single organism" for the good of the people.
"Today even more than before, we need the consolidation of political forces and the spiritual unity of our people," he told the congress in an exhibition center off Red Square.
Putin cast the move as a step toward European-style democracy, saying that for the head of a party to be prime minister is "a civilized, natural, traditional practice for democratic states."
But the analogy was not precise because in Russia, the prime minister is appointed by the president, unlike the European parliamentary democracy system in which the chairman of the leading party is generally chosen as premier.
Critics dismissed Putin's argument as a bid to lend legitimacy to a process engineered from the top down, saying it was more like a step backward toward Soviet times, when the Communist Party had no rival and its chief was the supreme leader.
Some analysts called Putin's decision the strategic maneuver of a control-minded leader determined to head off potential challenges, and said it would undermine Medvedev by boosting the authority of Putin and parliament.
In terms of imagery, Putin eclipsed Medvedev at the congress, staying firmly in the spotlight in his final weeks of an eight-year presidency marked by carefully choreographed events that have helped enhance his popularity.
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