Why is the Russian President More Powerful than the Duma?

Comments ( 3 )

1. Rasputin says

   Because Putin has his own vision for the future of Russia. A better question is why does the prime minister have so much more power than the president? Putin is now prime minister and Medvedyev is president. Which one is running the country?

   Putin made several moves to consolidate presidential power and no one in the Duma wanted to challenge him. Some think that Putin will try under Medvedyev's reign to extend the presidential term limits so he can be re-elected. Quite plainly, the reason is because the democratic process in Russia is not very transparent. For Putin's re-election campaign many workers were told to go to the polls and vote for Putin. It is old-style KGB tactics more than just criminals running the country. Putin has actually done more in Russia's recent history to combat crime than any other president and he wants to continue to do so. Only he wants to do so on his terms. He wants to have more state control because he believes (perhaps rightly) that power needs to be more centralized in order to combat crime, mafia and tax evasion. It is all a bunch of convoluted KGB/political/New Russian back stabbing and jockeying for power.

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2. Silent Night says

   just like Chavez in Venezuela he has consolidated power and is a defacto dictator, Russia is a criminal country run by crooks and thieves.

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3. Tim says

   I think that this has something to do with Stalin, then Kruschev and so on. The autocratic cult personality of these former Russian Heads of State has left an indelible impression for all Russian leaders and much to the demise of the Duma but moreso with the impact of the Politburo and the KGB bureaucracy which has affirmed the autocratic figurehead of the Russian socio-political communist regime. This was until Glasnost and Gorbachev's perestroika period during the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

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