Putin's future role still a mystery

MOSCOW — Vladimir Putin said Monday that parliamentary elections handed him the mandate he sought to remain Russia's leader after his presidency ends next spring. But he needs to decide quickly how to use that mandate or risk seeing his influence erode.

In just two weeks, his United Russia Party is to pick a candidate for Putin's replacement. In three months, the next president will be chosen in another election. In May, Putin must step down.

For years, Russia's political leaders have speculated about what would happen in the final months of Putin's last term. Now the endgame is here, but the riddle of Putin's future remains.

He has promised to respect the constitution's limit of two consecutive terms and give up the presidency. But few expect him to simply relinquish his enormous power, which is underpinned by his widespread popularity over Russia's stability and economic growth.

Will he serve as prime minister? Or perhaps chief of the governing party? Might he become head of the Security Council, a presidential advisory body? Some of his supporters are touting a new, so-far undefined post of "national leader."

All seem unlikely or at least awkward answers to the problem of succession. Worse, perhaps, there is a conviction among many here that Putin himself hasn't decided what to do — creating a growing sense of uncertainty and fear of a power vacuum.

Things may not have gone as smoothly for Putin as he hoped in recent months.

In engineering the victory for United Russia, he may have expended more political capital than he expected. Many Russians reacted with anger at sometimes clumsy efforts to manipulate the vote, and Putin seemed uneasy in a taped TV address pleading for Russians to vote for him and his party.

United Russia's victory margin constituted a landslide, but the 63 percent total for United Russia was short of the 71 percent that Putin won in the 2004 presidential contest.

In talking with reporters Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed that whatever role Putin takes "will not undermine the capacities of the (new) president."

But he had nothing specific to say about Putin's next role, other than that it would "be very important" and that "his very deep expertise, his very rich experience and his political talents will be in high demand."

Putin was no more forthcoming, emerging only to thank voters for endorsing his leadership by giving United Russia 70 percent of the seats and routing his critics from parliament.