Putin Shows His Hand: He is to Lead Russia's Ruling Party, United Russia

Putin has finally made his choice. Here are the pros and cons for Putin:

Pros:
These are rather obvious and will be stressed by many pundits in the analysis to come.

1. He can remain near the locus of power as head of the ruling party (which will now almost certainly sweep to a massive victory in the elections in December).
2. More than likely he will named Prime Minister, hoping therefore to serve as defacto president.
3. As head of the ruling party, he will be able to legislate by sending laws through a Duma controlled by his party.

Cons:
This move has some interesting institutional ramifications, some of which will make Putin's power less certain than it might seem.

1. The Prime Minister has traditionally been a weak position in the Russian government. In fact, Russia's constitution is heavily biased toward the President (has decree power and can dissolve the Duma - Putin's new power base - with relative ease) Thus, if the new President decides that he wants to weaken Putin or the Duma, he will be within his lawful powers to do so. For instance, if Putin becomes Prime Minister, traditionally, the President has the power to dismiss the Prime Minister at will and appoint a new one. Putin might still then be able to block the confirmation of a new Prime Minister and then use the Duma to impeach the President (but here again he will run into trouble because the Federation Council - the upper house of the Russian Parliament - will be able to block impeachment proceedings since it is staffed by regional representatives, many of which are appointed by the President and are loyal to him).

Either way, there is some uncertainty as to the power of the Prime Minister and Putin will have to rely on his informal control of the new President to continue as a powerful player in Russian politics. Furthermore, overall for Russian institution building this might lead to more power migrating toward the Duma (which under Putin has developed into a rubber stamping institution). This could still yield a system with more checks and balances.

UPDATE:

Gazeta.ru has speculated that the fact that the Constitution is so biased toward the President might now change that Putin is likely to be prime minister. Dmitrii Oreshkin, head of the Mercator group, thinks that 2008 will yield major changes in the Russian constitution - generally toward strengthening the position of the Prime Minister. This would be good for Russian institution building: scholars in both Russia and the west have long suggested that the constitution is far to favorable to the executive and that strengthening the legislature would be a good move for the long term stability of Russia. If this is indeed what Putin is setting up, he might prove to not only be a powerful personality but also to be what Russia has long needed: an institution builder.

On the other hand, it might also set up a dual power situation that leads to more instability: Putin the PM versus the successor. Russia had a dual power system during 1917 (the soviets and the provisional government) - the Bolsheviks took advatange of that situation. The instability of a dual power situation might be problematic - the jury is still out.