Russian parliament backs changes allowing Putin to run again for president

MOSCOW: Russian senators on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved amendments to the constitution submitted by President Vladimir Putin, including the option for him to run for two more terms in the Kremlin.

The constitutional reforms were backed by 160 senators in the upper house Federation Council, with one voting against and three abstaining. They must now be approved by two-thirds of Russian regional parliaments before being put to a public vote on April 22.

In a speech ahead of the Federation Council’s vote, speaker Valentina Matviyenko called the passing of the amendments "one of the most important issues in (Russia’s) modern history".

She hailed an amendment introduced on Tuesday that would give Putin the chance to run again when his current term ends in 2024, by effectively resetting the clock on previous presidential terms.

Putin "must have the right to participate in new competitive elections", she said. "He raised Russia from its knees" and "is considered one of the world’s great leaders," she said.

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, on Wednesday 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 favor the Soviet-era practice of having leaders for life who die in office.

Putin in January unveiled a major shake-up of Russian politics and a constitutional overhaul, which the Kremlin billed as a redistribution of power from the presidency to parliament. But Putin’s critics say the reform was merely a smoke screen to give the country’s ruling elite a way to keep Putin in power after 2024.