Russian President Vladimir Putin's pledge to become prime minister if his protege Dmitry Medvedev becomes president left Russian newspapers confused yesterday as to the new power structure taking shape.
Dailies questioned how such a strong president as Putin could, after eight years in charge, take the traditionally weak post of prime minister without the risk of creating two power centers in the country.
"The model described by Putin does not seem stable to me ... It's a dangerous experiment," political analyst Alexander Tsipko wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda, Russia's biggest selling daily.
Moskovsky Komsomolets said there could be "two czars" in the country for the first time since the 17th century, when the ailing Ivan Romanov and his younger brother Peter Romanov were both pronounced czars amid a bitter power struggle.
The two brothers officially co-reigned between 1682 and 1696, when Ivan died. Peter later became known as Peter the Great, a reformist czar who founded the city of Saint Petersburg.
"Putin and Medvedev are hiding something. Vladimir Vladimirovich and Dmitry Anatolyevich may well know how they are going to work in these posts. But for everyone else this is a closely guarded secret," Moskovsky Komsomolets said.
Izvestia voiced concern about the new layout, saying it would confuse Russians "as people are used to thinking that Putin is responsible for all the good stuff while the government answers for the bad stuff."
"Russia, where all powers are concentrated in presidential hands, has never had such a strong prime minister," the daily said.
Prime ministers are "like high-ranking clerks, and the government's voice is always weaker than the Kremlin's," Izvestia said.
The newspaper Gazeta agreed, saying: "One of the main questions is who will be held responsible for inflation and economic failures" if Putin gets himself involved in the day-to-day business of government.
But other papers suggested that the future power structure could be less confusing than appeared, with the economic daily Vedomosti saying Russia's businessmen were "not afraid" of a Putin-Medvedev ruling duo.
"Putin as prime minister with the unconditional support of the parliamentary majority will remain the chief figure in Russian politics, with the state apparatus revolving around him," Vedomosti cited one businessman as saying.
Leonid Radzikhovsky, a political expert writing in the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, said that in any case Putin had to remain influential in order to ensure stability.
"It is impossible to just extract Putin from the power grid -- if he just goes, it will simply become unstable," Radzikhovsky said.
Vitaly Tretyakov, another political analyst writing in Komsomolskaya Pravda, said the main confusion would be for officials, not ordinary Russians.
"The two centers of power can create problems not for the people but only for the bureaucracy, which will be confused about who it has to answer to," he said.
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