Bowing out in 2024?

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have dropped a major hint yesterday about not running again in 2024, with a cryptic remark that the wording in the constitution on presidential mandates should be amended, observers said. By law, a Russian president, whose mandate is now six years long, cannot serve more than two successive terms.

After succeeding Boris Yeltsin and serving two terms from 2000 to 2008, Putin got around this by handing the presidency to his ally Dmitry Medvedev in 2008 and then serving four years as prime minister. Despite huge opposition protests Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012.

But yesterday Putin said the word “successive” could be removed from the country’s basic law, a move that could rule out any such job swap scenario in 2024 when his current mandate ends. “As for the terms, remove the word ‘successive’.

Your humble servant served two successive terms and then stepped down and had the constitutional right to return to the post of president... But some of our political scientists and activists do not like this and maybe this could be removed, possibly.”