US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to a new poll.

The Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday and run by the Hiil on the same day showed Sanders had captured 25 percent support against Biden at 22 percent.

The latest poll, which is Sanders best results in a Morning Consult tracking survey since last March. indicated Biden’s support dropped 6 points from a similar poll conducted between late January and early February.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg saw his support rise to 17 percent, while former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg gained support, as well, finishing the latest poll with 11 percent. 

Only one other candidate, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), notched double digits in the Morning Consult poll, coming in with 11 percent support. 

The poll suggests that Sanders’s near win in the Iowa caucuses last week has bolstered his standing in the race and given his campaign a surge of momentum nationally. It’s also unwelcome news for Biden, marking the first time since he launched his presidential campaign that he has fallen out of first place.

Sanders isn’t the only candidate that benefited from a strong finish in Iowa.

Buttigieg’s support surged 5 points since the last Morning Consult poll. He currently leads in the delegate count in Iowa. 

The Morning Consult poll surveyed 15,436 Democratic primary voters from Feb. 4-9. 

Source: Presstv

Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg takes the lead among other rival candidates in Iowa’s caucuses, according to an announcement late Sunday by the state Democratic Party.

Buttigieg was officially awarded the most delegates from last week’s Iowa’s caucuses after a recanvass of 55 precincts was completed, holding a 0.1% lead over Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders in the state delegate equivalent count.

While Buttigieg will get 14 delegates from the caucuses, Sanders will receive 12, according to the Iowa Democratic Party’s website.

Meanwhile, no other candidate received a double-digit number of delegates, showed the updated results.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar will get eight, six and one respectively.

However, major broadcasters have not yet declared an official winner from Monday’s caucuses because of confusion resulting from the vote-reporting process.

In the first batch of long-delayed results from the chaotic Iowa Democratic Party caucuses released on Tuesday, Buttigieg was leading with about 28 percent of the delegates and Sanders came second with 25 percent.

Both Buttigieg and Sanders had claimed victory earlier in the day long before the actual results came in.

The results were published nearly 21 hours after Iowans cast their ballots, with officials blaming inconsistencies related to a new mobile app used for vote counting for the unusual delay in the Midwestern US state.

Republicans questioned the Democrats’ capability to run the country if they could not conduct a caucus, while President Donald Trump mocked the Democrats on Twitter and called the delay an “unmitigated disaster.”

Before the results were released, campaign aides for Biden had cited gross failures in the caucuses. The caucus kick-starts the five-month process of picking a challenger to the incumbent Republican president.

Source: Presstv

Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the top finishers in Iowa’s first nominating contest, faced a barrage of criticism on Friday from rivals who said they did not have what it takes to lead the party to victory against Republican Donald Trump.

In a heated debate in New Hampshire just four days before the state’s pivotal primary, the two came under heavy fire as their Democratic rivals questioned whether Sanders’ democratic socialist views and Buttigieg’s relative lack of experience made them too much of a risk for the Nov. 3 election.

Sanders, 78, a U.S. senator and leader of the party’s progressive wing, and Buttigieg, the 38-year-old former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, finished in a virtual dead heat in Iowa earlier this week.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the one-time front-runner who finished a disappointing fourth in Iowa, came out swinging in his most aggressive performance yet, a sign of growing desperation as he looks to rebound.

He said Trump would have an easy time ripping into Sanders in a general election campaign.

“Bernie has labelled himself, not me, a democratic socialist. I think that’s the label that the president is going to lay on everyone running with Bernie if he is the nominee,” Biden said.

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who finished a distant fifth in Iowa, said Sanders would not attract the kind of centrist voters needed to win.

“Donald Trump’s worst nightmare is a candidate who will bring people in from the middle,” Klobuchar said at the eighth Democratic debate. “I think we need someone to head up this ticket that actually brings people with her instead of shutting them out.”

Biden and Klobuchar also questioned whether Buttigieg had enough experience to face off with Trump. Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, a city with a population of 100,000.

“It is easy to go after Washington, because that’s a popular thing to do,” Klobuchar said, telling Buttigieg that “it’s popular to say and makes you look like a cool newcomer.”

‘Turn the page’

Buttigieg said the Washington insider experience of some of his rivals was no longer what was needed, and it was time to “turn the page” on the old Washington politics.

Billionaire activist Tom Steyer said Buttigieg has not been able to show much appeal to the black and Latino voters who are crucial to a winning Democratic campaign.

“Unless you can appeal to the diverse parts of the Democratic Party, including specifically the black community, including specifically Latinos, if you can’t do that, then we can’t beat Donald Trump in November,” Steyer said.

Buttigieg also came under fire for his record on race in South Bend. Asked about an increase in arrests of blacks on marijuana-related charges, he said as mayor he targeted cases “when there was gun violence and gang violence.”

Asked if Buttigieg’s answer was sufficient, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said: “No. You have to own up to the facts.”

Historically, candidates who win the Iowa caucuses see a boost in New Hampshire, and two opinion polls released this week showed Buttigieg within striking distance of Sanders, who has consistently been atop the field in the state.

But with controversy surrounding the Iowa results, New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday takes on added importance in the race for the Democratic nomination.

Biden did not seem confident about how he would do.

“This is a long race. I took a hit in Iowa, and I’ll probably take a hit here,” he said.

After the performance in Iowa, Biden’s campaign on Friday said that Anita Dunn, a longtime Democratic strategist and former White House aide to President Barack Obama, would assume a larger leadership role within the campaign.

Aides to Biden downplayed the move, noting that Dunn has been advising the campaign all along.

“This is not a reshuffling,” one aide said. “This is giving her a slightly broader portfolio.”

Sanders, who has called for a political revolution that will attract new voters, said “the way to beat Trump is by having the largest voter turnout in the history of this country.”

He said he could appeal to working class voters who have given up on the political process “because they don’t believe anybody is hearing their pain, perceiving their pain, feeling their pain. And we’ve got to bring young people into the political process.”

Notably absent from the debate was Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire former New York mayor, who is not competing in New Hampshire but has been assembling a formidable campaign operation in later voting states. Although Bloomberg has been ascending in national polls, he has been funding his own campaign and not taking donations, so he failed to meet the donations criteria for the debate.

(REUTERS)

As Iowa’s Democrats entered their party’s caucuses on Monday, defeating President Donald Trump in November’s election was at the top of their minds when considering which candidate to support for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination, according to preliminary findings by the National Election Pool (NEP).

The NEP, a consortium of news organizations including Reuters that runs election-day polling through Edison Research, found most caucus-goers were simply looking for a winner instead of someone who agrees with them on the issues.

Here are some highlights from the entrance poll based on interviews with 745 Iowa Democrats as they headed into the caucuses. The results will be updated as more interviews are collected.

Six in 10 caucus-goers said they were looking for a Democratic nominee who they think can beat Trump. About four in 10 said they wanted a nominee who agrees with them on major issues.

Three in 10 said they were attending the Iowa caucuses for the first time, which appears to be below that of 2016. Four years ago, 44% of people attending the Iowa caucuses said they were doing so for the first time. In 2008, 57% said they were new to the Iowa caucuses.

Nearly a third of Democrats said before entering the caucuses that they picked their candidate in the last few days.

That appears to be higher than the number of late deciders in 2016. Four years ago, 16% of caucus-goers said they had made their choice in the last month or earlier.

Healthcare was the issue that mattered most to Iowa caucus-goers. About four in 10 said that was the issue they cared most about when thinking about picking a nominee. Two in 10 said it was the climate, another two in 10 said it was income inequality and one in 10 said it was foreign policy.

The entrance poll also asked Democrats about which candidate they were supporting for the nomination. The selections are not predictive of the outcome, however, given that many Democrats will change their preferences if their chosen candidate does not win enough support in the caucuses.

Edison, a Somerville, New Jersey-based exit polling firm, has been providing election-day poll data to a consortium of news organizations through the National Election Pool since 2004.

(Source: Reuters)

Democratic prosecutors and Republican defenders at President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Thursday barreled toward a confrontation over new witnesses, something that would deny Trump the swift conclusion of the matter that he seeks.

As US senators spent a second day firing questions at both legal teams, Republicans, who control the chamber, said they were confident they could hold a final vote and acquit Trump as early as the weekend.

But some holdouts were suggesting they may side with Democrats and demand testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton and perhaps others regarding Trump’s dealings with Ukraine.

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, argued in a submitted question that additional witnesses could be necessary.

“The dispute about material facts weighs in favor of calling additional witnesses with direct knowledge,” Murkowski said.

“Why should this body not call Ambassador Bolton?” Senator Lamar Alexander, a key Republican vote from Tennessee, told CNN he would detail his position on witnesses after Thursday’s session.

Possible testimony from Bolton is of particular interest after a report – which he has not denied – that he planned to say in an upcoming book that Trump told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in US military aid for Ukraine until it investigated Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was vice president.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump in December, formally accusing him of abusing his power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. The House also charged Trump with obstruction of Congress.

Republicans hold a slim majority in the 100-member Senate, and the defection of more than three on the question of witnesses would prolong Trump’s trial and stymie his allies who hope to hold a final vote soon and minimize the political damage to the president.

Two-thirds of the Senate is required to remove Trump from office. He is unlikely to be convicted.

Earlier in the day, John Barrasso, the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, told reporters that Republicans were likely to beat back the Democratic effort for witnesses.

Trump’s acquittal would allow him to claim vindication just as the Democratic Party holds its first nominating contest for the Nov. 3 election in Iowa on Monday.

Trump held a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday night and slammed the trial, calling it an effort by Democrats to overthrow his 2016 election victory.

“They want to nullify your ballots, poison our democracy and overthrow the entire system of government,” Trump said.

Trying to unmask whistleblower

The two sides also sparred over the unnamed government official whose whistleblower complaint about Trump’s dealings with Ukraine spurred the drive to remove him from office.

Trump and some other Republicans have pressed for months to unmask the intelligence official who filed the report and have tried to paint that person as a partisan figure working with Democrats to destroy Trump’s presidency.

The government has provided security to the whistleblower in response to security threats, according to the person’s lawyers.

On Thursday, the issue boiled to the surface again when US Chief Justice John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial, refused to read a question from Republican Senator Rand Paul that included the name of a person that right-wing media have accused of being the whistleblower.

Paul is one of several Republicans, including Trump, who have posted social-media links to some of those news articles.

“The presiding officer declines to read the question as submitted,” Roberts said. He had rejected a similar question the day before.

Paul said his question, which asked whether that person worked with a member of Democratic Representative Adam Schiff’s staff to impeach Trump, was not meant to unmask the whistleblower.

“My question’s not about the whistleblower. My question’s about two people who are friends,” he told reporters.

Democrats disagreed.

“This question was really framed and intended to expose the identity of the whistleblower and subject that whistleblower to retaliation,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal told reporters.

Bradley P. Moss, a lawyer whose firm represents the whistleblower, called the Republican effort “a stain on the legacy of this constitutional republic.”

Closing arguments, and climactic vote

On Friday, each side is expected to present closing arguments before the Senate moves to the question of whether to call witnesses, which could inflict political damage on the president as he seeks re-election.

If the vote on whether to allow witnesses is 50-50, Roberts could step in to break the tie. But there is so little precedent for impeachment trials – this is only the third of a president in US history – that Senate aides said there was no way to know exactly what would occur.

If Roberts declines to break a tie, the vote deadlock would mean a defeat for Democrats.

Schiff, the lead Democratic prosecutor in the trial, proposed that both sides conduct closed-door witness depositions for a week while the Senate returns to normal business.

But there was no sign his plea was being considered by Republicans.

(Source: Reuters)

Democrats worked methodically at U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Thursday to dismantle his long-standing allegation that Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden acted improperly toward Ukraine while vice president.

On the second day of their arguments for Trump’s removal from office, Democratic House of Representatives members argued that Biden did nothing wrong and was only carrying out official U.S. policy when he pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, Victor Shokin, because of corruption concerns.

Trump and his allies maintain that Biden wanted Shokin out in order to head off an investigation into a natural gas company, Burisma, where his son Hunter served as a director. Democrats said no evidence supported that allegation.

House managers spent Thursday focusing on the charge that Trump abused his office by pressing Ukraine to investigate the Bidens purely for political gain.

They argued that Trump pushed the Ukrainian government to probe Biden and his son because he was worried about facing the former vice president in November’s election. Biden is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“If we allow this gross abuse of power to continue, this president would have free rein – free rein – to abuse his control of U.S. foreign policy for personal interest, and so would any other future president,” U.S. Representative Sylvia Garcia said on the Senate floor. “And then this president, and all presidents, become above the law.”

Democrats contend senators should convict Trump on two charges brought by the Democratic-led House – abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

But the Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans, remains unlikely to do so. A two-thirds majority is needed to remove him from office.

The U.S. Constitution sets out the impeachment process for removing a president who commits “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Trump’s legal team has argued that the House charges were invalid because impeachable offenses must represent a specific violation of criminal law.

Trump condemned the proceedings as “unfair & corrupt” in a Twitter post on Thursday.

The charges against Trump arise from his request in a July 25 phone call last year that Ukraine investigate Biden on unsubstantiated corruption allegations and the president’s actions to impede a House inquiry into the matter.

Trump also asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a discredited theory beneficial to Russia that Ukraine worked with Democrats to hurt Trump in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump temporarily withheld $391 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which Democrats say was leverage for his demands.

‘Opened the door’

Trump’s lawyers quickly argued that by bringing up the Bidens, Democrats had made their conduct a relevant subject for the rest of the trial.

“They opened the door. They opened the door and it’s now relevant,” Jay Sekulow, a personal lawyer for the president and a member of his defense team, told reporters at the Capitol. “So we will address the appropriate issues as defense lawyers would.”

Added Republican Senator Ted Cruz: “Hunter Biden is not only relevant, he is now critical.”

But Sekulow said Trump’s team was not yet focused on whether new witnesses will be called, a matter the Senate will take up after senators have a chance to submit questions to both sides next week.

Trump’s lawyers are likely to begin their defense of the president on Saturday, after House Democrats finish their opening arguments.

Democratic Representative Adam Schiff said House managers on Friday would focus on the charge that Trump unlawfully obstructed Congress by keeping key administration officials from testifying and by refusing requests for documents.

As the arguments again went deep into the evening, Republican senators continued to complain the House presentation had become repetitive and that they were looking forward to the president’s defense.

Democrats countered by saying Republicans had blocked their attempts to bring new evidence to light through additional witnesses and documents.

Signs emerged on the second day of arguments that the Democratic case was losing some of the public’s attention. There were empty seats in the gallery overlooking the Senate floor.

Television ratings were down. About 8.9 million viewers watched the first day of arguments on Wednesday, falling short of the roughly 11 million who watched on Tuesday, according to Nielsen ratings data.

Senators also showed increasing signs of restlessness, with many wandering to the rear of the chamber where they could make phone calls and check their smartphones.

Speaking on the Senate floor, Garcia poured cold water on a conspiracy theory offered by some Trump defenders that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.

“If this sounds far-fetched and crazy, it should, because it is,” the lawmaker said.

U.S. intelligence agencies and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that Russia used a campaign of hacking and social media propaganda to interfere in the election to sow discord in the United States and boost Trump’s candidacy against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Moscow has denied meddling in the election.

The Democrats displayed a November quote from Russian President Vladimir Putin saying: “Thank God nobody is accusing us anymore of interfering in the U.S. elections. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.”

(REUTERS)

Russian President Vladimir Putin called Thursday for a summit of leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, to “defend peace” in the face of global instability.

His call came as Russia promotes itself as a global powerbroker, playing a decisive role in crises in the Middle East, Libya and Ukraine.

Putin said the leaders of Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain could meet “in any place in the world”.

Speaking in Jerusalem at an event marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Putin argued that the countries that created a new global order after World War II should cooperate to solve today’s problems.

“The founder countries of the United Nations, the five states that hold special responsibility to save civilisation, can and must be an example,” he said at the sombre memorial ceremony.

The meeting would “play a great role in searching for collective answers to modern challenges and threats,” Putin said, adding that Russia was “ready for such a serious conversation.”

Putin suggested war-torn Libya could be on the agenda, following recent peace talks in Moscow and Berlin.

– ‘Positive reaction’ –

Putin said Moscow had proposed the summit to “several of our colleagues and as far as I understand, saw a positive reaction”.

Russia has increasingly close ties with China, whose President Xi Jinping last year called Putin his “best friend”, while French President Emmanuel Macron has made a point of cultivating Russia.

While relations between the US and Russia have plunged to post-Cold War lows, President Donald Trump has praised Putin. The Russian leader has also criticised moves to impeach his counterpart.

There are varying accounts of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s first official meeting with Putin, on the sidelines of Libya talks in Berlin at the weekend.

Downing Street said Johnson delivered a stern warning that Russia must never repeat its chemical attack on British soil against former double agent Sergei Skripal, but the Kremlin said the talks were constructive, even conciliatory in tone.

– ‘Frightening consequences’ –

Putin was one of dozens of world leaders in Jerusalem to mark the liberation 75 years ago of the World War II death camp where the Nazis killed more than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews.

Soviet troops liberated the death camp.

Russia will hold large-scale celebrations in May to mark 75 years since the allied victory in World War II, with numerous world leaders invited.

“Forgetting the past, and disunity in the face of threats, can lead to frightening consequences,” Putin said.

Countries must “do everything to protect and defend peace,” he added.

Putin’s proposal comes despite Russia being expelled from the G8 group of industrialised countries after seizing Crimea from neighbouring Ukraine in 2014.

Russia is also subject to numerous European and US sanctions because of the conflict in Ukraine.

Moscow denies accusations by Kiev and its Western allies that it provides weapons to separatists fighting in the east.

Source: AFP

President Vladimir Putin has said he does not want Russia to return to the Soviet-era practice of rulers dying in office without a succession plan, as speculation swirls over his future after he unleashed a political upheaval this week.

The 67-year-old Russian leader said a transition plan for the country was crucial, in comments several days after his shock proposal of sweeping changes to the constitution saw the government resign and a new prime minister appointed.

Putin, who has been in power for two decades, was asked if he could consider removing presidential term limits from the constitution during a meeting with World War II veterans in his hometown of Saint Petersburg on Saturday.

But he appeared to reject the idea.

“In my view, it would be very worrying to return to the situation of the mid-1980s when heads of state one by one remained in power until the end of their days, (and) left office without having secured necessary conditions for a transition of power,” Putin said.

“So, thank you very much, but I think it’s better not to return to the situation of the mid-1980s.”

Soviet rulers Leonid Brezhnev, Yury Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko all died in office.

Chernenko’s successor Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost reforms to transform the Soviet system and presided over the eventual collapse of the USSR.

Putin, who is due to step down in 2024 after his fourth Kremlin term ends, said he understood what he called people’s concerns about the continuity of power.

“For many of our people this is linked to worries about stability in society, stability in the state — both foreign and internal stability — I perfectly understand this,” he said.

Many observers have said Putin’s proposals are designed to ensure his grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin and his critics have accused him of orchestrating a “constitutional coup”.

On Wednesday, Putin stunned Russians with his constitutional proposals, including transferring more authority to parliament and enshrining the role of the State Council, an advisory body, in the constitution.

They would be the first significant changes to the country’s basic law since it was adopted under Boris Yeltsin in 1993.

The announcement triggered the resignation of the government, led by Putin’s loyal lieutenant Dmitry Medvedev.

A previously little known tax official, Mikhail Mishustin, was tapped by Putin to take over as premier and he was officially appointed on Thursday.

Source: AFP

President Vladimir Putin nominated a new prime minister on Wednesday 15 January after the shock resignation of Dmitry Medvedev, who has been at the head of the government since 2012. Medvedev will be succeeded by Mikhail Mishustin, who until now was a barely known tax chief with no political clout.

After announcing a profound overhaul of Russian institutions and a reform of the constitution in his annual State of the Nation address, Putin proposed Mishustin as the new head of government, following the surprise resignation of the prime minister in office for nearly eight years, Medvedev.

Mishustin had been the head of the Russian tax service since 2010 until Medvedev’s bombshell announcement propelled him to the position of PM.

Russia’s lawmakers quickly approved Mishustin as prime minister on Thursday in a vote in the Duma, or the lower house, less than 24 hours after Putin had nominated him.

Mishustin received 383 votes of 424 cast, with no votes against and 41 abstentions in a victory that had been all but assured when he won the unanimous backing of his party, United Russia, which has a strong majority in the chamber.

Mishustin will have a week to propose a new government and ministers.

He told United Russia that some changes in the cabinet would be made but did not elaborate, lawmaker Viktor Vodolatsky told Interfax.

‘Surprise nomination’

Mishustin, a 53-year-old Moscow civil servant who shares a passion for ice hockey with Putin, is little known by the general public.

Known as a technocrat who loves new technologies and has remained well out of the Russian political arena, his appointment has shocked some experts. “The appointment of an obscure second-rate unknown is a surprise,” reports Nick Holdsworth, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Russia.

“Commentators had instead put forward other names, including Sergey Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow who is known to be loyal to President Putin.”

An engineer and economist by training, Mishustin is described by Russian state media as an efficient servant of the state and the creator of the “best tax collection system in the world”, according to the Russia-24 television channel.

On the website of the Russian Presidency, the results of his service and his work are duly praised by the head of state in the reports of his annual meetings with Putin.

‘Forged in the system’

Married with three children, Mikhail Mishustin joined the Russian administration in 1998. He served as Deputy Minister of the taxation department and worked in several government agencies. He is described by political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann to AFP as “an ideologically neutral figure”.

After a two-year stint in the private sector at the head of an investment fund, UFG Asset Management, he was appointed head of the tax department in 2010 with the task of thoroughly modernising it.

A promoter of the digitisation of the Russian economy, Mishustin is behind the creation of a centralised database designed to improve the efficiency of tax collection and to be accessible to all administrations.

“This is certainly an unexpected appointment, but that doesn’t mean it will be rejected. He has a great deal of experience behind him,” said Ilyas Umakhanov, vice-president of the Council of the Federation, the upper house of parliament, before Mishustin had been approved. “He is someone who has been forged in the system.”

During his presidential terms from 2000 to 2008, Putin had already appointed officials who were unfamiliar to the public – like Mikhail Fradkov in 2004. Their key qualities included that they never sought to overshadow the Russian President.

The announcement of major constitutional reforms and the change of government announced on Wednesday are seen by analysts and opponents as an indication that Putin is now looking very seriously at his political future after the end of his last term as President in 2024.

Some suggested 67-year-old Putin, who is two years into his fourth presidential term and has steered the country since 1999, could be laying the groundwork to assume a new position or remain in a powerful behind-the-scenes role.

Independent political analyst Maria Lipman said to AFP that Putin’s announcement indicated that he wanted to “stay on as number one in the country, without any competitors”.

She said he could be deliberately weakening the presidency before relinquishing the role.

Russia’s opposition also said the proposals indicate Putin’s desire to stay in power.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on Twitter that Putin’s only goal was to “remain the sole leader for life”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

WHAT IS VLADIMIR PUTIN playing at? On January 15th Russia’s president took Kremlin-watchers by surprise. In his state-of-the-union speech, he announced a radical overhaul of the Russian constitution and a referendum on its proposed (still very unclear) terms. This bombshell was immediately followed by another. The prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, resigned along with the entire cabinet. As The Economist went to press, the reasons for Mr Medvedev’s ejection and replacement by an obscure technocrat remained a riddle wrapped in a mystery.

To understand what might be going on, start with a simple fact. In the past 20 years Mr Putin’s regime has killed too many people, and misappropriated too many billions, to make it plausible that he would ever voluntarily give up effective power. Under the current constitution he cannot run again for president when his term expires in 2024, since no one is allowed more than two consecutive terms. So everyone has always assumed that one way or another he would game the rules to remain top dog. He already has form on this. His first two terms as president ran from 2000 to 2008. Term-limited out for the first time, he became prime minister for four years, during which time Mr Medvedev served as a distinctly neutered president. In 2012 Mr Putin was back in the suddenly re-empowered presidency, and was re-elected to a second term in 2018. The only enigma has ever been what job he would jump to in 2024.

We still do not know. One option, clearly, is for Mr Putin to return to being prime minister; an argument for this happening is his statement that the new arrangements he is seeking will make the post more important, with full powers to appoint the cabinet (subject to confirmation by parliament, which Mr Putin’s loyal United Russia party controls), rather than letting the president pick them. Another, and more likely, option is that Mr Putin will seek to maintain his hold on power by continuing to head a vaguely defined but powerful body called the State Council, which (funnily enough) Mr Putin said in his speech should be given more powers under the rejig.

In reality the details do not much matter. Russia is a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy. Mr Putin’s electoral successes owe much to years of economic growth (now brought to an end by corruption, uncompetitiveness, the end of the oil boom and Western sanctions following the annexation of Crimea in 2014) and the popularity of his reassertion of Soviet-era imperium. But they owe perhaps even more to state control of television, the barring of popular opposition candidates, the co-opting of tame opposition parties and the arrests and intimidation dished out to the less tame ones. The murder of political opponents is no way to foster genuine competition for power.

Whether Mr Putin is president, prime minister, head of the State Council or honorary chairman of the National Bridge Association (the post through which Deng Xiaoping ruled China for years after stepping down from his more prestigious offices), makes a lot less difference than it would in a real democracy. Nor does anyone know what the final shape of the new constitution will be. Mr Putin may decide, as many a despot has done before him, that a new constitution means resetting the existing term limits. Or, as Xi Jinping did in China in 2018, he could simply scrap term limits altogether (he says he does not want to do this). Mr Xi did not even bother with a referendum, pushing the change that will allow him to rule indefinitely through the supine National People’s Congress with 2,959 votes out of 2,964. Another model is offered by Kazakhstan, where Nursultan Nazarbayev, who became his independent country’s first president in 1990, stepped down last year—only to stay on as leader of the ruling party and holder of the title “Leader of the Nation”.

America would once have spoken out against such rule-twisting. Under Donald Trump, it does not; the American president makes little secret of his admiration for strongmen. Nor is the EU likely to do more than mutter as Mr Putin glues himself to the throne. It is spooked by a rising China and dependent on Russia for its gas supplies. The world’s autocrats will watch events in Moscow with interest, to see if Mr Putin can offer them useful tips for extending their own rule. For democrats everywhere, the only comfort is that even rulers-for-life don’t live for ever.

Culled from The Economist