18.11.08

The most important element in the president's Message to the Federal Assembly was Dmitriy Medvedev's decision to amend the Constitution. There will be a total of three amendments: to increase the presidential term of office to 6 years, to increase the term of office of the State Duma to 5 years, and to oblige the government to report annually to the State Duma on the results of its activity and issues raised directly by parliament.

As State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov said, the president will submit the amendments for examination by parliament within 2 weeks. This will be the first time in the history of Russia that we will have seen the initiation of the procedure for making amendments to the Constitution, which require the approval of two-thirds of Duma deputies, three-fourths of Federation Council members, and also a majority of deputies from the legislatures of two-thirds of the Russian Federation components. The United Russia party currently controls 83 out of 85 regional legislative assemblies.

The very fact of amending the Constitution is a most important political event. It should be remembered that for 7 whole years (from 2000 through 2007) Vladimir Putin consistently and robustly opposed amending the Russian Federation Constitution, considering that the Fundamental Law should remain inviolate. But a year ago Putin changed his opinion for the first time in an interview with G-8 journalists. All the indications are that it was then that the decision on the essence of the current amendments was made.

At that time Putin said that 4 years was an insufficiently long presidential term for Russia. "It seems to me that in any event 5, 6, or 7 years (as a single presidential term) would be perfectly acceptable, but the number of terms should nevertheless be restricted," he said. "I think that a restriction on terms is correct anyway," Putin said. "Maybe 4 years was a copy of the American practice and not much notice was taken of it when the new Constitution was being adopted," the president noted. "But 4 years is quite a short period of time, of course," Putin said at that time. As an argument the president cited an example, indicating that 2 years are required just to get up to speed on federal and international problems. As Argumenty i Fakty wrote at the time, it is Kremlin practice to adopt a decision in principle on the advisability of creating a working group on making changes to the Fundamental Law. According to Ekho Moskvy's information, the working group was supposed to be headed by Russian Federation Government's First Vice Premier Dmitriy Medvedev. So it cannot be ruled out that the foundations for the current decisions were laid precisely in 2007, at the same time as preparations were being made to also implement the "2008 successor" plan.

Amending the Constitution is politically a very risky business. First, there is the problem of controlling the process of submitting amendments. The Russian Constitution essentially ceases to be an untouchable "sacred cow." Because of this the Message devoted a great deal of space to the Constitution: The president cautioned the elite against "revolutionary zeal," making it plain that he was talking not about constitutional reform but about amending the Constitution. In general a very great deal of space in the Message was devoted to the role of the Fundamental Law: As head of state, it was important for Medvedev to preserve the immutability and inviolability of the Constitution to the maximum possible extent, protecting it against temptations to make new amendments and making it clear that the current decisions are exceptional. Medvedev pointed to the decisive role of the Constitution in establishing Russian democracy and its significance for shaping a qualitatively new legal system and independent judiciary, further expanding economic and entrepreneurial freedom, and implementing social guarantees. "The Constitution set the path for Russia's renewal as a free-nation state.... The Russian Constitution is effective, it works, and its basic provisions must remain immutable for many years to come," the president said. Second, there is the moral and ethical aspect. Any political leader who ventures to amend the Fundamental Law risks encountering sharp criticism. This is a matter of political responsibility for Medvedev too. At the same time, building up political responsibility is an inseparable part of the process of "growing into the job."

Third, amending the Constitution gives rise to a number of political questions. The subject of an actual "third term" for Vladimir Putin has again appeared in the media. As Vedomosti learned from a Kremlin source, Putin prepared the amendments for himself but they were developed by Vladislav Surkov. In accordance with this theory, the next presidential election (it cannot be ruled out that it would be early) would be utilized to return Putin to the top political post for a period of 6-12 years. Against this backdrop Medvedev looks only like a placeholder through whom it was planned to implement the controversial reforms. But such a theory is extremely contradictory: Virtually the entire Russian political class is in favor of increasing the presidential term. It was essentially a matter of time. Dmitriy Peskov, the Russian prime minister's press secretary, stated in an interview for AFP that there are no plans in Russia for early presidential elections in 2009 designed to return Vladimir Putin to the presidency. In addition, early elections are at variance with the style of the regime created by Putin, which envisions the holding of elections at the prescribed time (let us remind you that during Putin's 8 years in office there were repeated rumors about the early dissolution of parliament, but they never came to fruition).

From the political viewpoint an increase in the presidential term would mean for Russia primarily the strengthening of the institution of the presidency. In Europe only Austria and Ireland have a presidential term of 6 and 7 years respectively. But they have a premier-president form of government-- that is, a large proportion of executive powers belong not to the president but to the prime minister. In France the presidential term was 7 years until recently, but Jacques Chirac reformed the Constitution, reducing the term to 5 years. In Russia an increase in the presidential term is seen as strengthening presidential power.

In the process the reform is being accompanied by the separation of presidential elections from elections to the State Duma, whose term of office is, for its part, increased from 4 to 5 years. Until recently the issue of separating elections was quite controversial: State Duma elections became a kind of "primary" ahead of presidential elections. But this created certain political difficulties for the president: The mobilization of political resources to form the requisite composition of the lower chamber of parliament had a political "price" of its own. The model of a concentrated cycle was in favor in the previous conditions when political power was weak, when the political vulnerability of the president (in the Nineties) because of the merging of presidential and parliamentary elections resulted in the phenomenon of a superpresidency, with the winner taking all. The need for such a model has now abated.

As compensation for the strengthening of the institution of the presidency, the State Duma receives not only an extended term of office but also the right to hear annual reports from the government on the results of its activity and on issues raised directly by parliament. This "burdening" of the government is mitigated by the fact that the State Duma is controlled and Vladimir Putin is the leader of the majority United Russia party. But in the long term this works in favor of strengthening the institution of parliament.

There are contradictory reactions to increasing the presidential term: On the one hand the 4-year rule was actually adopted in 1993 because there was no choice -- it was a concession to the public, which was worried about the growth of the opportunities available to the president as a result of the confrontation between the head of state and the parliament. But today there is a consensus among the political elite about the need to increase the term. But the context in which the amendments are being adopted is making the process of amending the Fundamental Law more controversial and the nature of the adopted decisions contradictory from the viewpoint of the development of democracy.

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Source: Politkom.ru