Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that if he wins the 2012 presidential elections, he would not sharply alter what was done during Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency.
“If the power reshuffle we offered is accepted by the voters, the people, the citizens, I am not going to sharply alter what has been already done by Dmitry Anatolyevich [Medvedev],” the prime minister said in an interview with three Russian national TV channels.
Putin, who was constitutionally barred from standing for a third consecutive presidential term in 2008, will represent United Russia in next year’s presidential elections. The prime minister said that the agreement with Medvedev on the possible reshuffle of power was made four years ago.
Putin’s interview comes seven weeks before parliamentary elections scheduled for December 4. The United Russia party, led by then-president Putin, won the previous parliamentary polls in 2007. International observers from the OSCE and the Council of Europe said at the time that the election was unfair and “failed to meet many OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and standards for democratic elections.”