Poetin wordt premier van Rusland (en)
Russian president Vladimir Putin seems set to retain power even after his second presidential term expires next year, as he has accepted an offer to serve as prime minister.
"If citizens show trust in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him president, I will be ready to head the government without changing the institutional powers of the president and government", Mr Putin said on Monday (17 December), the Moscow Times reports.
The announcement was made at a congress of United Russia - the pro-Kremlin party, which won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections earlier this month - shortly before the party endorsed Mr Medvedev as its candidate for the presidential race in March 2008.
Mr Medvedev, 42, currently serves as a first deputy prime minister as well as chairman of Russia's state-run gas monopoly Gazprom.
"We should not be ashamed or afraid of transferring key powers of the country, the destiny of Russia, into the hands of such a man", Mr Putin said, according to the Moscow Times.
The power-sharing deal ends speculation on whether the current Russian leader would resort to changing the constitution, which currently bars him from seeking a third presidential term.
It remains unclear, however, what role Mr Putin will play on the country's political scene.
"I don't have the slightest doubt that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, in the future, will keep using his enormous political and professional resources, his influence both in our society and in the world, for the benefit of Russia and its citizens", Mr Medvedev himself said, according to AP.
According to Leonid Gozman from the opposition Union of Right Forces party, the deal will see a strengthening of the prime minister's role at the expense of the president's.
"It means either there will be a transfer of functions from the president to the premier or Putin will think of something else, for example, either becoming general secretary of United Russia or changing the constitution to create the position of spiritual leader of the nation", Mr Gozman was cited as saying by AP.
Analysts also took a critical tone, with Konstantin Remuchukov from the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta saying "It means one thing: Putin's team will remain in power".
"This is not an election but the distribution of roles within a single team. There has never before been such a situation in Russia", he added.