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Monday 1 October 2007

Staying in power 'our' way

In Central Asian states it is quite a 'norm' that President is elected for life (Turkmenbashi phenomenon). Something very similar we recently evidenced in Azerbaijan: father Aliyev 'passed' his presidency to son Aliyev. But everyone knows that these are not democracies. No surprises then.

Slightly different phenomenon of 'exchange in power' (= staying in power even after my terms of presidency passed) is developing in countries with certainly higher level of democracy.

Not a long time ago there were intense speculations that after current Prime Minister Serj Sargsyan become a new President of Armenia, current President Robert Kocharyan may be appointed as his Prime Minister. This was neither denied nor confirmed by Kocharyan who kept saying that he would not be the youngest pensioner of Armenia. This scenario seem less realistic now, taking into account changing political situation. To be honest, I completely forgot about it until today...

Reading today's news: Russia's current President Putin did not exclude the possibility of becoming a future Prime Minister of Russia.

It was hard to imagine that President Kocharyan would feel comfortable working as Prime Minister under Serj Sargsyan; even harder (much harder!) to imagine that President Putin would work under anyone else's presidency, however loyal that anyone may be. There are various speculations as to the reasons of these announcements... We have to wait and see, or speculate further...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Putin would have to find someone who really WAS a puppet to him. Which i wouldn't put past him doing.
By the way, i noticed the Genocide petition on here - i have signed it now and posted it on my blog. :) Did you also know about the demonstration in support of the monks in Burma on Saturday?
Rhiannon.

artmika said...

Thanks for support re Armenian Genocide recognition, Rhiannon!

I knew about demonstration in support of the monks in Burma, but did not know that links, thanks!Just posted it in my blog.