Quote:
Originally Posted by Typhoid
The fact he's going to stay somewhat in power and I see nothing wrong with him going from a Presidential seat to a Prime Minister and changing the layout of Russian Democracy has nothing to do with my stance on him, or anything of the sort. He's changing his country. Whether it for the better or the worse is yet to be decided, or even seen.
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As Prime Minister he would essentially be President. His power is nearly absolute as it is, to the point that his endorsement for presidency all but guarantees that mans election to the office.
There is a chance that he's moving in a pro-democracy direction, but that hasn't really been proven by his history. Most of his policies in the political arena have been to remove democratic power, not increase it, the biggest example being when he repealed the ability for individual provinces to elect their own governors. Now they are all appointed by HIM.
Now this could be an example of him cracking down on corruption, but it is a tenuous situation at best when you remove corruption with borderline fascism. I'm not saying his intent couldn't be altruitistic, and it wouldn't be the first time that a leader reluctantly took the reigns to save his people (Lord Protector comes to mind), but it is exceedingly rare that the motives are pure. Add to that the number of questioning journalists that have "disappeared" in Russia and the short term period of assassinations via radioactive poisoning, you know, from an ore that only comes from
Russia, and you have plenty of reasons not to trust this man. He doesn't quietly kill political enemies, he sends obvious MESSAGES.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We'll have to wait and see if Putin has been corrupted (we know he is insanely vain). I just hope that we hear that he is not, because if he is it might already be too late considering his loyalty to China and Iran.