Putin To Be PM For Puppet President

By Cernig

ABC News reports that Vladimir Putin has found his way to retain power despite being term-limited as Rusia's President.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was ready to become prime minister if his close ally Dmitry Medvedev succeeds him, giving Putin a way to keep a grip on power after he leaves the Kremlin.

A 42-year-old lawyer with no political base of his own, Medvedev is virtually certain to win next March's presidential election since most Russians will vote for whoever the highly popular Putin endorses.

"If Russian citizens express their confidence in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him as the country's president, I will be ready to head the government," Putin told a congress of his United Russia party held near Moscow's Red Square.

For his own part, Medvedev made clear in his acceptance speech just who would be holding his strings.

In his brief acceptance speech, Medvedev listed priorities such as strengthening Russia's position in the world, preserving the Russian nation, looking after the young and the old.

"All this is in Vladimir Putin's strategy. I will be guided by this strategy, if I am elected president," Medvedev said.

"But carrying out an idea can only be successful with the participation of its author. I have no doubt that in the future Vladimir Vladimirovich (Putin) will use all his resources, all his influence in Russia and abroad for the benefit of Russia."

Observers still feel that there's a chance of Putin doing an end-run around the Russian constitution by a merger with Belarus...which would require a new constitution and allow him to be President of the new combined nation again.

All around the world wanna-be dictators are turning to a false form of democracy, a soft totalitarianism, to conceal their true intentions from their people. The hardline hard-nosed Hitler and Stalin form of dictatorship is so last century.