Musical Chairs in Moscow

Source: here

The BBC's news reports, though fairly few in number compared of course with the "rolling news" feeds that I receive, are very often written in good style.

Today, there is a fine piece by Moscow correspondent Bridget Kendall that speculates on likely developments following Dimtri Medvedev's election success on Sunday.

Miss Kendall comments:

"If Mr Medvedev is the protege, how can his political patron abruptly become his junior?

Are we to expect Mr Putin to traipse up to the Kremlin every Monday, as is customary, to make a weekly report to his new boss? Will he hang President Medvedev's portrait on his prime ministerial wall?

And will Mr Putin have to worry that one day he may wake up to find he has been sacked? After all, the Russian constitution allows the president to reshuffle his cabinet whenever he wishes."

And Putin is quoted as saying:

"The president is the guarantor of the constitution and sets the main domestic and foreign policy guidelines," he declared last month.

"But the highest executive power in the land lies with the government" whose task, he tells us, is not just to oversee the economy and social policy, but "to create conditions to ensure defence and security".

Miss Kendall concludes:

So much for changing jobs - it sounds as though Mr Putin wants to take his with him.

Quite ominous I would say.

Until the next time