:: Putin might run for president in 2012 - political analysts

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says there will be no competition between him and Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev in 2012, the year of the presidential election in Russia, Russian news agencies reported on 11 September, quoting Russian and foreign political scientists, participants in the Valday discussion club meeting.

Russian news agency Interfax quoted political scientist Ariel Cohen as saying that Putin noted "there will be no competition with Medvedev in 2008, and there will be none in 2012". The prime minister's and president's "personal ambitions are reduced to zero", Cohen quoted Putin as saying.

Russian news agency ITAR-TASS quoted German political scientist Aleksander Rahr from the German Council on Foreign Policy as saying that for the first time at the Valday meeting Putin "sent out a signal that he was seriously considering the possibility to come back to the president's post in 2012"

Rahr said that "the (presidential) election campaign starts practically in a year's time and now is the right time to send out a signal like this."

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted Nikolay Zlobin, the director of Russian and Asian programmes at the World Security Institute, who said: "Asked whether there will be competition between him and Medvedev at the 2012 election, Putin asked a counter-question: 'Was there competition back in 2008? There will be none in 2012 either. We shall come to an agreement, because we are of one blood and common political views.'"

Putin also said that when time came, Putin and Medvedev would "have a think together" on the basis of the reality of 2012, as well as political plans, balance of forces and the position of One Russia.

"I was very impressed when Putin said that he was comfortable about the volume of power that he as prime minister had. There is no competition with President Medvedev here," Zlobin said.

Asked how independent Medvedev was in taking decisions, the prime minister said that the Russian authorities were not going to prove anything to anyone, Zlobin said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. "The government possesses huge authority in accordance with the Constitution, as for the rest, this is a question of personal ambitions which we do not have against each other," Zlobin quoted Putin as saying.

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