"If only we had half a Putin" - divesting power - grounding peace - [PEACE]

[Zenaan Harkness]

Run down of recent Russian parliamentary events and what to expect.

  Putin's Now Purged The West From The Kremlin
  https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/putins-now-purged-west-kremlin
  https://tomluongo.me/2020/01/17/putin-purged-west-kremlin/

    ...
    These events of the past couple of days in Russia are the end
    result of years of work on Putin’s part to purge the Russian
    government and the Kremlin of what The Saker calls The
    Atlanticist Fifth Column.

    ...
    Gilbert Doctorow has an excellent early reaction to this dramatic
    turn by Putin which I encourage everyone to read in full. The
    subtle point he makes is:

      https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2020/01/16/vladimir-putin-prepares-his-succession/

      To understand what comes next, you have to take into
      account a vitally important statement which Putin made a
      few moments before he set out his proposed constitutional
      reforms. He told his audience that his experience meeting
      with the leaders of the various Duma parties at regular
      intervals every few weeks showed that all were deeply
      patriotic and working for the good of the country.
      Accordingly, he said that all Duma parties should
      participate in the formation of the cabinet.

      And so, we are likely to see in the coming days that
      candidates for a number of federal ministries in the
      new, post-Medvedev cabinet will be drawn precisely from
      parties other than United Russia. In effect, without
      introducing the word “coalition” into his vocabulary,
      Vladimir Putin has set the stage for the creation of a
      grand coalition to succeed the rule of one party,
      United Russia, over which Dimitri Medvedev was the
      nominal chairman.

    The end result of this move to devolve the cabinet appointments
    to the whole of the Duma is to ensure that a strong President
    which Putin believes is best for Russia is tempered by a cabinet
    drawn from the whole of the electorate, including the Prime
    Minister.

    That neither opens the door to dysfunctional European
    parliamentary systems nor closes it from a strong President
    leading Russia during crisis periods.

    Once the amendments to the constitution are finalized Putin will
    put the whole package to a public vote.

    This is the early stage of this much-needed overhaul of Russia’s
    constitutional order and the neocons in the West are likely
    stunned into silence knowing that they can no longer just wait
    Putin out and sink their hooks into his most likely successor.




On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 03:16:33PM +1100, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> Peace and politics - they don't usually go together.
> 
> But you don't usually have a putin at the helm of your state.
> 
> We could be so lucky in Australia to have half a Putin.  Alas we have
> pocket lining dunderheads, morons and some genuinely sociopathic
> compromateds.
> 
> As the Western media scrambles to paint every cough and pause by
> Putin in the maximum possible nefariousness, at least we can look
> afield on occasion and get a betterer backstory:
> 
>    Russian political earthquake: Putin sets out plan
>    for Kremlin departure & Medvedev resigns
>    https://www.rt.com/op-ed/478381-russian-government-resignation-mishustin/
> 
>     ...
>     Today, the president set out the roadmap for his exit from the
>     Kremlin, more-or-less kicking off the build-up to the transition
>     of power. He will step down in 2024, or perhaps even earlier, and
>     he intends to dismantle the “hyper-Presidential” system which
>     allowed him to wield so much control in office.
> 
>     ...
>     Make no mistake, Putin’s goal is to preserve the system which he
>     inherited from Yeltsin, and then tweaked. For all its faults,
>     after a difficult birth it has given Russians the greatest
>     freedom and prosperity they have ever known. Even if much work
>     remains to be done on distributing economic gains more fairly.
> 
>     ...
>     One notable suggestion is that future presidents must have lived
>     in Russia for 25 continuous years before taking office, and have
>     never held a foreign passport or residency permit. This would bar
>     a lot of the Western-leaning Moscow opposition from running. Not
>     to mention a large swathe of Russian liberals, a great many of
>     whom have lived abroad at some point. Interestingly, if this rule
>     had existed in 2000 Vladimir Putin himself wouldn't have been
>     able to become Russia's president. He lived in Germany from
>     1985-1990 (albeit on state duty).
> 
>     ...
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.