Russian parley backs Putin’s 5th term in office

MOSCOW - Constitutional changes allowing Vladimir Putin to run for president again in 2024 sailed through Russia’s lower house of parliament yesterday, opening the way for him to potentially stay in power until 2036.

Putin, 67, who has dominated the Russian political landscape for two decades as either president or prime minister, made a dramatic appearance in the chamber a day earlier to argue that term limits were less important in times of crisis.

Putin, a former KGB officer, is currently required by the constitution to step down

in 2024 when his second sequential and fourth presidential term ends. But the amendment which he backed would formally reset his presidential term tally to zero.

The 450-seat State Duma, the lower house of parliament, yesterday voted in favour of the change, along with other amendments to the constitution, by 383 votes, in a third and final reading. Nobody voted against, but 43 lawmakers abstained. Twenty-four lawmakers were absent. If, as Putin critics expect, the Constitutional Court now gives its blessing to the amendment and it is backed in a nationwide vote in April, Putin would have the option to run again for president in 2024.

Were he to do that, and his health and electoral fortunes allowed, he could potentially stay in office for another two back-to-back six-year terms until 2036 at which point he would be 83 and have spent 36 years at the top of Russian politics. Kremlin critic and opposition politician Alexei Navalny has said he believes Putin will now try to become president for life.

Putin has not spelled out what his plans for the future are after 2024, but has said he does not favour the Soviet- era practice of having leaders for life who die in office.