MOSCOW. Sept 21 (Interfax) - Russia needs strong presidential power, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Putin says he will do everything to make sure that the next leader of the country is independent.

"I am not interested in a Russian president being weak. I do not want it. I want our president to be not just self-sufficient but also someone who is able to efficiently fulfill his duties and obligations to the nation," Putin said at a meeting with members of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi on September 14, 2007.

Shorthand of the meeting was posted on the Russian president's www.kremlin.ru official website.

"Of course - hopefully, my health will allow me, and I do want it - it will be a factor that the future president will apparently have to take into consideration. And certainly we will have to agree how we should function. But at any rate, I will do my utmost to ensure both his independence and efficiency," Putin said.

Putin said he " worked all these years to make Russia strong."

"Russia cannot be strong with a weak president. I am not going to ruin with my own hands what was done in recent years," Putin said.

"In the mid-term historical context, Russia will need a strong presidential power," Putin said. "I cannot imagine anything different. I have already said that we need to strengthen and develop the multi-party system. But what kind of a parliamentary republic can there be when normal political parties are absent? This will lead to chaos," Putin said.

"Even under conditions of a developed, fully formed multi-party system we see failures," Putin said. "For instance, the Federal Republic (of Germany). Once a group separated from the Social-Democratic Party and formed its own party, there began a failure of a systematic nature. Well, Schroeder is a decent man, he left office. And what would happen if he did not? A crisis might have ruled there up to now. Like in Belgium, they cannot form a government for months. And Russia is a vast country. It has a colossal territory, it the largest in the world," Putin said.

"You studied the problems of relations between religions. Many ethnic groups and people with differing traditions live in this country. Last time we seem to have discussed the events in the Caucasus. Take for instance Dagestan. Dozens of ethnic groups live there, they all speak differing languages and they do not understand each other because their languages are different," Putin said.

"Russian is the language of natural inter-ethnic communication. There are four title nationalities, and the tradition is this: if the president represents one ethnic group, the prime minister should represent another ethnic group, and the parliament chairman should represent a third ethnic group. One should never disrupt this balance, because it will lead to an internal explosion. Russia is a complicated country; and therefore, today especially in the absence of a stable and developed multiparty system, there can be no other form of democratic rule but a strong presidential power," Putin said.

"You recall Anatoly Sobchak, and I really highly appreciate the period when I worked together with him, it was a great experience for me. At that time, in the early 1990s, the City Assembly wielded basic power in the city (St. Petersburg). So we thought we would introduce principles of the parliamentary democracy at once at the municipal level, and that was a city with a population of five million, comparable in size with a European country like Finland," Putin said.

"I repeat, practically the whole power was in the hands of the Legislative Assembly, and the Legislative Assembly was to appoint the members of the city government, too. You know, it turned into an endless terror. For six months, we could not appoint ministers to the municipal government. The whole city economy began to fail. Then the deputies got frightened themselves that everything would fall apart soon and that people would go out into the streets. And then they themselves took the decision to elect a mayor with functions similar to presidential ones on a national scale, and to grant him basic powers. Because in the absence of real multiparty system, some commercial structures arise behind each deputy, as well as certain groups according to political interests," Putin said.

"Without internal discipline and ideology uniting these people, it will lead to chaos," Putin said.

"So in the near future, in the next decade, I think it would be extremely dangerous. But it does not mean that this is a waning democracy. Strong presidential power and the nation are functioning in France, as you said. And not only there. Is the presidential power in the U.S. very weak? And France has no restrictions on the number of presidential terms, as far as I remember. But we have (such restriction). So I do not see any prejudice for democratic principles here, but the presidential power necessary in Russia so far," Putin said.