I don’t envy Putin’s successor. He will come to power despite the fact that the majority of Russians want Putin to stay on. He will have the irritating presence of Putin, still young and healthy, somewhere behind him. He will no doubt hear constant negative comparisons between his rule and the golden age of Putinism, and constant calls for Vladimir Vladimirovich to return and lead the country back to glory.

I fear the next government will be rather in the position of the British Conservative Party after Margaret Thatcher was fired, or the American Democratic Party after Bill Clinton stepped down. These figures so dominated the political landscape, it made it very difficult for their successors – John Major and Al Gore - to look anything other than ciphers. Major certainly wasn’t helped by Thatcher’s unwillingness to leave the stage. She hung on, soaking up the nostalgia of the party, sniping at her successor’s actions.

It’s far from an ideal situation. You end up with a weak leader, and ultimately a weak country – Major’s reign saw the economy sink into recession, the government beset by sordid scandals, and the pound forced to leave the ERM.

So what should Putin do after the presidency? He could become a roving goodwill ambassador, as Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev and particularly Jimmy Carter have done. This would have the advantage of showing a more responsible, globally engaged Russia, one not just rigidly defending Russia’s national interests, but reaching out to the world as well.

Or he could do what Dmitri Medvedev is doing now – become the head of special projects. For example, he could be the country’s crisis manager, concentrating on issues of national urgency such as the demographic crisis or AIDS.

Alternatively, he could head up Gazprom, the company that is so at the heart of Putinism that it practically is Putinism. He could say, like King Louis of France, ‘Gazprom, c’est moi.’

But it’s difficult to see Putin working in the government on a junior basis. It would seem beneath his dignity, and also to be impractical. Nor is he apparently likely to head up Gazprom or any other corporation. Medvedev said as much when he met western journalists in June.

So it is still hard to see what he should do. Perhaps he should simply disappear, like Alexander I, and join some monastery in Siberia.

This weekend, it began to become clearer what he would, in fact, do. I was watching the Sunday edition of Vremya on Channel One. This show is so directly controlled by Vladislav Surkov, it’s a great way to find out what the government is plotting.

This week, it gave a ten-minute account of Surkov’s answers to western journalists last week. I was at that meeting, and it was weird to see the newsreader, Petr Tolstoy, simply parrot Surkov’s answers, word-for-word, for about ten minutes, without any commentary, any third party comment, just Surkov’s words. For a while, I thought I could see the puppet strings attached to Tolstoy’s arms. What was ironic was that Surkov had been repeatedly asked in the meeting about the freedom of the press and other democratic indicators. ‘Yes, we are a democracy’ said Surkov. ‘Yes we are a democracy’ repeated the newsreader dutifully.

Anyway, Tolstoy paid special attention to a comment by Surkov that Putin should be allowed to be a member of United Russia, noting that Tony Blair was a member of the Labour Party, George Bush a member of the Republican Party etc.

No sooner said than done. The next item on Vremya showed Putin holding a special meeting with United Russia representatives from around the country. Surkov was there too, smiling at the sidelines. At the meeting, Duma MP Martin Shakhum asked Putin to become the Party Leader. He said: “We would like to see that you continue being the national leader by determining the country's future with such a tool as a political party responsible for outlining national strategy.” Cue thunderous applause.

So this seems to be the answer. Presidents come and go. Party leaders remain for as long as they like. Russia could become, in this case, a unique ‘party democracy’, where one party maintains a firm grip on power, and the leader of the party is not the president, but is in fact the strongest person in the country. The party’s main technologist, Vladislav Surkov, would be the second most powerful person in the country. Then would come the president.

I can’t say whether this set-up would work. It would certainly fit the long history in Russia of ‘the party’ as central ruling institution. It would also, however, undercut the authority of the president, encourage back-stabbing and intriguing, and lead to a two-headed government. People would be constantly running to Putin to complain about the president. They would seek Putin’s approval, not the president’s, because the president would be gone eventually, but Putin might still be around.

And once Putin had left the presidency, he would be free to have his own business interests. You might very quickly see a Putin business empire build up, closely tied to United Russia. The bigger it got, the richer United Russia would become, and the tighter its hold on power. This is already happening to some extent, through United Russia funding from Kremlin-controlled industries such as Russian Railways.

Still, if you’re desperate to obey the Сonstitution but keep the steadying figure of Putin around, maybe this ‘leader of the party’ gambit isn’t so bad. Personally, I still think he should just disappear to a monastery.

Julian Evans, a British freelance journalist based in Moscow.

July 3, 2006

Hot topics

• 2007-2008 ELECTIONS IN RUSSIA