Hopefully it's methanol.
Greedy evil power hungry fuck...
News that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s latter-day tsar, is making plans to cling to power indefinitely comes as no surprise. All the same, it is deeply worrying for Putin’s prey – principally the Russian people and the western democracies.
Putin, 67, has run Russia, as president and prime minister, for 21 years, a feat of political longevity surpassed only by Joseph Stalin. Like Stalin, he has made many enemies and caused untold misery along the way.
Russia under Putin’s grim tutelage has grown notorious for cronyism and corruption on a vast scale, repression of domestic opponents and free speech, and military aggression and disruption abroad.
Again like Stalin, retirement is not a safe option for the ruthless ex-KGB spy who normalised assassination as a modern-day tool of state policy. To yield power would be to invite retribution, legal or physical.
Yet it appears Putin does not want to emulate out-and-out dictators in other countries by making himself president-for-life – the path chosen by China’s Xi Jinping. He values a veneer of democratic legitimacy.
So under proposals unveiled last week, Putin could assume a newly powerful post of prime minister in 2024 when his presidential term ends. Or he could become chair of the State Council, a body he created. Both jobs can be held indefinitely.
Putin also has options to be speaker of the Duma (parliament) or leader of its main party, United Russia, thereby exercising power behind the scenes in the manner of Jaroslaw Kaczyński, leader of Poland’s Law and Justice party.
Whatever he chooses to do, the powers of any presidential successor will be clipped, there will be new term limits, and the ability of hostile oligarchs and emigre Russians – 7% of the population – to challenge him will be curbed.
The accompanying, enforced resignation of the entire government, including the prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, is Putin’s attempt to reset his administration before Duma elections next year. Analysts say he feared Medvedev’s unpopularity – he has been accused of corruption – was beginning to rub off on him.
His appointment as prime minister of a non-politician, Mikhail Mishustin, an old ice hockey chum and pliable tax chief, is meanwhile seen as a clumsy way of denying a platform to potential rivals.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-people-russia
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