Pavlovsky on the third-term initiative

From today's issue of Johnson's Russia List:

BBC Monitoring
Kremlin adviser negative about third term for Putin
Source: Ekho Moskvy news agency, Moscow, in Russian
0859 gmt 10 Aug 05 [No dateline, as received]

President of the Effective Policy Foundation Gleb Pavlovskiy has dismissed the initiative by Maritime Territory legislators to amend the constitution in order to allow President Vladimir Putin to run for a third term in office.

"It's a bad idea," Pavlovskiy told Ekho Moskvy radio. The legal arguments backing the initiative do not stand up to any criticism, he said. Pavlovskiy sees the idea as "political capitulation".

"These deputies say that they don't know how to run the country without Putin in the Kremlin. It means that they are unfit for their jobs and have already failed to do their work properly," he said."

The idea to hide behind the back of one person is well known to us," he went on to say. "Instead, they should have worked with Putin's supporters and created a strong political force that could work effectively with or without Putin in office," he said.

They should ask Putin's backers whether they want it [changing the constitution] or not, Pavlovskiy said. "The debates on the third term are splitting Putin's supporters roughly in half," he said.

The parliamentary and presidential elections [in 2007-08] "must create a competitive and legitimate authority, recognized in and outside Russia, otherwise they will develop into a crisis," Pavlovskiy said.

It seems that Maritime Territory deputies "are planning a crisis well in advance and are ready to launch it ahead of the election time", he concluded.