President Dmitry Medvedev moved yesterday to entrench the current Russian leadership's grip on power by proposing a presidential term that would extend the stint in office from four to six years.

Medvedev said the extension was necessary to guarantee stability and help Russia deal with huge global challenges. But critics said the proposal was further evidence of Russia's alarming and rapid drift towards authoritarianism.

This morning's Vedomosti newspaper, citing Kremlin sources, said that Medvedev could resign from his post as early as 2009 - paving the way for Vladimir Putin, currently the prime minister, to come back to the Kremlin.

Putin stepped down as president in May, when he handed over to Medvedev, his handpicked successor. Under this scenario Putin could get his presidential job back next year and then serve two six-year terms, Vedomosti suggested.

In his first state of the nation address yesterday, Medvedev also said he was deploying cruise missiles in western Russia to "neutralise" the Pentagon's missile defence system - and lambasted the US for its "arrogant course" and "unilateralism".

Speaking hours after Barack Obama was voted in as the next American president, Medvedev said Russia would site short-range Iskander nuclear-capable missiles next door to Poland, in Russia's Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad.

The Iskander missiles would be targeted at the US's missile defence and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, Medvedev said. Russia would also install radio-jamming equipment to sabotage the US weapons, he added. The US insists its system is aimed not at Russia but at Iran.

Medvedev's threat - with its echoes of cold war-style confrontation along the frontiers of eastern Europe - is likely to be an early foreign policy headache for Obama, as his fledgling administration seeks to improve ties with the EU. The Democrats are ambivalent about the Bush administration's expensive defence plans in Europe. But if Obama dumps the project he risks accusations of weakness and caving in to Russian bullying.

With Medvedev's predecessor, Vladimir Putin, looking on, sometimes nodding approvingly but mostly inscrutable, the Russian president told his audience in the Kremlin that "we have no problem with the American people". He said he hoped that "our partners, the US administration", would choose to have "full-fledged relations with Russia".

At the same time he said Moscow had to respond to the security challenges posed by the US and Nato's expansion right up to Russia's borders. "These are forced measures," he said, referring to Russia's new nuclear deployment, adding: "We have told our partners more than once that we want positive cooperation ... but unfortunately, they don't want to listen."

But the most striking part of Medvedev's speech concerned constitutional themes - and his proposal to extend not only the presidential period in office but also the parliamentary term for Russia's state Duma, from four to five years.

..."It's about the minimisation of risk," said Grigorii V Golosov, a professor in the faculty of political sciences and sociology at St Petersburg's European University. He added: "Even as empty as elections are in contemporary Russia they are still risky for power-holders."

"If you want to minimise risk you have to make elections as seldom as you can. I wonder why they don't make it every seven years."

The Kremlin would now find some "para-constitutional procedure", later ratified by the high court, to change the country's 1993 constitution, Golosov predicted. Such a move was technically illegal, he said, as the constitution guaranteed the right to vote every four years.

Other analysts said the Kremlin was now enacting an ambitious long-term plan to create a "mini-USSR", which would include Russia, Belarus and the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - effectively annexed by Russia after its war with Georgia in August. Putin could become head of this new union, they said.

"This is quite natural for an authoritarian government," Olga Kryshtanovskaya, the head of elite studies at Moscow's Institute of Sociology, said of the plan to extend the presidential term. "A democratic country tries to limit the time of its leaders. An authoritarian one tries to prolong its power as long as possible."

Before he stepped down as president Putin regularly insisted that Russia's constitution was sacrosanct. He cited it as the main reason why Andrei Lugovoi - the former KGB agent charged with the 2006 murder in London of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko - could not be extradited to the UK to stand trial.

Yesterday Medvedev said he was not planning to change Russia's constitution as such, but merely to "amend" it. Last night the Kremlin said this could be done without a popular referendum. The new six-year term would not apply to the current incumbent and would only come into effect after Medvedev's term was up, it suggested.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/no ... lin-russia

RUSSIAN MPs have approved a law extending the presidential term from four to six years, in a move that could lead to the return of Vladimir Putin to the most powerful job in the land.
The government-backed bill swept through the lower house of parliament with an overwhelming majority, and with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party dominating both houses, it faces an almost unchallenged journey to the statute books.

The fact that the bill is being fast-tracked through parliament has spawned avid speculation in Moscow that it could herald the return of Mr Putin.

The man who is now prime minister gave up the presidency in May because the constitution bars an individual from serving more than two consecutive terms, but many observers of the often opaque Kremlin world believe he still harbours a desire to return... http://news.scotsman.com/world/New-rule ... 4697551.jp

government such as that in Canada, Britain, the US, etc that has done so much to damage democracy at home certainly will not intervene in Russia or any other country with potential energy resources in the interests of democracy.