The people behind the referendum initiative, who are from North Ossetia, suggested the idea too late, as Russian legislation prohibits holding national referendums less than a year before federal elections. Parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 2007, and it will be physically impossible to prepare and hold the referendum in the next two months. The CEC voted against it for this technical reason.
But legal niceties will not stop those who want Putin to run for a third term. In the past few years, people, public associations and politicians who think that Putin must stay have been showering the Kremlin administration and the lower house of parliament with appeals.
They are not embarrassed by Putin's refusal to run for a third term. He reiterated his stand in Compiegne, France, in September. "There can be only one answer," he said in reply to a journalist's question. "I must respect the law and the Russian Constitution."
Shortly before going to France, Putin met with Russian and foreign political analysts and journalists attending this year's meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. He said about the possibility of his running for a third term: "Stability in Russia does not rest on an individual, but on the Constitution."
But the Constitution can be amended without a referendum. This fall the lower house plans to consider an initiative by members of the Chechen parliament who suggest cancelling the relevant constitutional provision. The Chechens' proposal can come into force if approved by two-thirds of the lower house (300 votes) and three-fourths of the upper house (132). After that, the idea must be approved by at least two-thirds of Russia's regions (59), but that would be a formality.
Analysts say the idea will not be approved, at least not this year. Vladimir Pligin, chairman of the lower house's committee on constitutional law, expressed the opinions of the pro-Kremlin party United Russia, which has a constitutional majority in the current house. He said the Constitution should be left intact for the current political cycle.
So the supporters of the Constitution, including the incumbent president, are successfully repelling the offensive by supporters of a third term for Putin.
The situation is complicated by the following problem: the personality of the president is no less important than constitutional norms for maintaining political stability in Russia, a country that has only recently overcome the threat of disintegration, is still dealing with the consequences of the Chechen war and is plagued by problems in the North Caucasus, where terrorist attacks occur nearly every day and ethnic clashes remain very probable.
It was Putin and his administration who found a common language with the North Caucasian elites and achieved political compromises that have more or less stabilized the North Caucasus. Will a new president be able to pursue the same policy?
Judging by the Chechen and Ossetian initiatives, which all the North Caucasian republics seem ready to support, they are not sure a new man in the Kremlin would do this. But then, the presidential election is still 18 months away, the main candidates are only beginning to line up for the race, and political agreements between Moscow and the North Caucasian republics in the next political cycle are not even in the pipeline.
It appears that the Russian Constitution will remain unchanged, and a new president will enter the Kremlin in 2008. It is crucial for Russia to hold the forthcoming elections without shocks, so as to strengthen the nascent tradition of legitimate transfer of power through general elections. However, the new president may turn out to be weaker than Putin, failing to find the right approach to the North Caucasus, just as Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin failed. And then we will see that the individual is not always secondary to the constitution.
Russia should look at the problem squarely and start resolving it now. Even if the Constitution is kept intact and Putin is denied the right to run for a third term, we should listen more closely to the opinion of the North Caucasian republics and try to see the fundamental reason behind their initiatives.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
