It’s an open secret that Vladimir Putin wants to extend his time in office as President of Russia. The only problem is that the Russian Constitution limits him to two terms, and he’s nearing the end of term # 2, and he’s looking for a loophole.
His latest effort, apparently, involves channeling the 32nd President of the United States:
MOSCOW, Oct. 18 — President Vladimir Putin, Kremlin political consultants and state-controlled news media have found an American to admire: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
FDR, according to a consistent story line here, tamed power-hungry tycoons to save his country from the Great Depression. He restored his people’s spirits while leading the United States for 12 years and spearheaded the struggle against “outside enemies,” as the mass-circulation tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda put it.
Translation: Putin rescued an enfeebled Russia from the chaos of the 1990s, banished or imprisoned dangerous billionaires and regained respect for his newly enriched country on the world stage.
And Roosevelt ran for a third and fourth term because his country needed him. Translation: Putin, too, should stay.
This version of American history is, of course, conveniently biased in a way that favors Putin. In reality, by the time the 1940 election rolled around, the onrush of World War II was a bigger issue than the Great Depression, and the Republican Party was still so disorganized from Hoover’s defeat in 1932 that it really didn’t have a chance of beating a popular incumbent like Roosevelt.
But adopting Roosevelt as an example, rather than trying to play on traditional Russian nationalism, is an interesting strategy and even Putin’s allies admit that there is a hidden agenda:
“There is no need to pretend that we are not referring to Putin when we talk about Roosevelt,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin’s leading political consultant, at a conference held earlier this year to mark the 125th anniversary of FDR’s birth, a date that passed largely unnoticed in the United States. “And then when Putin — I mean Roosevelt — when Roosevelt was contemplating the possibility of running for a third term, he chose to do this against his own wishes.”
Frankly, I’d expect rhetoric like this to continue as we get closer to the expiration of Putin’s term in 2008. And then, some crisis will occur that will demand Putin’s attention, the Constitution will be changed, and he’ll be President for life.
