Putin says we need an amendment that guarantees the constitution is the highest law of the land, above international law.
Putin says constitution must be amended so that senior government officials cannot have foreign citizenship or foreign permanent residence (loud applause!).
- By Carl Schreck
Putin has talked up the importance of improving Internet access and performance in Russia, though Putin himself has been notoriously skeptical of the Internet. An anecdote that Ekho Moskvy editor in chief Aleksei Venediktov told in August:
“Three or four years ago I asked him [why he doesn’t use the Internet], and he told me: 'Your Internet (my Internet!) is nothing but disinformation and manipulation. Look' – and he pointed at folders on his desk -- 'every one of them is signed by a general, and if they lie to me (and I make decisions based on this information, upon which millions of people depend), I can strip them of their rank…And these usernames, what is this all about?! That was four years ago. What the case is now, I’m not sure.'”
Putin says choosing to become an official means connecting your fate to the fate of the country.
Putin says anyone running for public office must have lived in Russia for 25 years and must not have foreign citizenship.
Putin calls for "fundamental" change in the role of governors in forming national policies. Says their role in the State Council should be formalized in the constitution.
- By Carl Schreck
Navalny suggesting that Prime Minister -- and former President -- Dmitry Medvedev fell asleep during Putin's speech. I suspect he might just have blinked -- Putin is only an hour into the speech, after all -- or closed his eyes for a second, and not actually dozed off.
Navalny weighs in on calls to boost the population and to improve conditions for doctors by noting that in his "first 20 years of his reign" Putin closed feldsher-midwife stations (health clinics where physicians' assistants and midwives provided first aid and basic health services) throughout the country, declaring them ineffective and unprofitable.
"And now, to the applause of United Russia, he declares that it is important to create and open feldsher-midwife offices. Putin's breakthrough."
- By Mike Eckel
Putin 2024.
That's the question that has been increasingly consuming Russia's political class.
Will Putin try to stay on as president -- or Russia's preeminent leader -- beyond 2024? That's when his current six-year term -- his second since returning to the presidency in 2012 -- will expire.
Last month, during his annual news conference, Putin made comments that suggested he, and Kremlin planners, were contemplating tweaking the constitution to possibly allow for him to stay on top of the Russian "power vertical."
The comment got tongues wagging, but they were cryptic enough that no one was 100 percent sure what he had in mind.
(For more background, see this story here).
In today's speech, Putin said that there was no need for a "new" constitution. But he called for removing the word "consecutive" from the constitution. And he called for the Duma getting a bigger role in nominating and naming the prime minister and top cabinet officials, and then obligating the president to approve those nominees.
That would be a notable shift toward more of a parliamentary system, from what Russia currently has.
He also called for making amendments to the constitution that guarantees it is the highest law of the land, above international law. (This is probably a reflection of how often Russia is on the losing end of cases brought against it in the European Court of Human Rights).