Putin Suggests He'd Be Premier

Analysts have suggested the party might remove the limit of two consecutive terms or strengthen the powers of the prime minister, though others say that with Putin's informal influence here, he doesn't need either step to continue dominating politics.

Putin told the party congress he was averse to constitutional changes, particularly for the benefit of one man.

The president, who is required to step down in March after two consecutive terms, has long indicated he would remain a major influence in Russian politics. As prime minister, backed by an unassailable United Russia majority in the next parliament, he could challenge even a president who chose to exercise the considerable powers of that office.

Under the Russian system, the president nominates the prime minister, but the final decision rests with parliament. In 1998, an assertive parliament forced a weak President Boris Yeltsin to nominate Yevgeny Primakov, a former foreign minister, for the job despite Yeltsin's interest in other candidates.

Such a scenario is unlikely to repeat itself because Putin will also play the key role in selecting the new president. His power and popularity are such that whoever he says he is backing will handily win the presidential election in March, analysts here say. The chosen loyalist would then respect Putin's wishes and exercise constitutional prerogatives gingerly.

Becoming prime minister, Putin said Monday, "requires at least two conditions." First, United Russia must win the Dec. 2 parliamentary elections; and second, the new president must be a "decent, effective and modern person." Both conditions are easily met.

Last month, Putin surprised the country's elite by picking the relatively unknown Viktor Zubkov, a longtime associate, as the country's new prime minister. The choice led to speculation that Zubkov would go on to become a quiet president, holding the office until 2012, when Putin could legally return to it, because his third term would not be consecutive.

Speaking Monday of the next president, Putin told delegates that "with him we could work as a pair."

"This means, first of all, that Putin will use the party as one of the main instruments for continuing his policies," said Sergei Markov, a political analyst and Kremlin loyalist who joined United Russia last week and is now on the party's list for the December election. "Putin will be prime minister or Putin will control the prime minister. The new president will also be nominated by a United Russia party congress and will be responsible to Vladimir Putin."

In an interview, Markov described that scenario as a "healthy redistribution of power" that would reenergize the dormant legislative branch.

But critics of the president said the scenario didn't presage the emergence of a system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches and merely confirmed Putin's role as the nation's puppet master.

"Today the president made his choice how to stay. . . . He gets the majority in the State Duma, the premier moves to the Kremlin, and things remain as they are," Mikhail Kasyanov, former prime minister under Putin and now an opposition figure, said on Echo Moskvy radio. "It means that the current political course, which in my view is leading our country to collapse, will continue."

Staff writer Robin Wright in Washington contributed to this report.