Catching Russians and Westerners of guard Vladimir Putin just recently announced his plans to shift some presidential powers to the parliament before he finishes his fourth and as the constitution demands, his last term as president.
He also reshuffled the cabinet, replacing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, putting a low profile official with no political ambitions in charge of the government. Skeptical analysts see this as Putin paving the way to keep power 'de facto' after 2024 when his term ends.
One notes that in Iran as in some other autocratic states, genuine power resides not in the president, but in some other institution.
It's interesting to note that the new Prime Minister, Mikhail Mishustin is said to be cut from the same cloth as Putin. He was the chief of Russia's Tax Service, a publicly obscure position that controlled a government agency known to be a tool of repression, sometimes used to punish Putin's political enemies. The new prime minister and the President are like two peas in a pod.
As expected Putin denied wanting to remain in power indefinitely as his critics have charged. In his view “it would be…(Pikemalt EE 24.01.2020 paber- ja PDF/digilehes)
