Russian political stitch-up starts to unravel

By Charles Clover

With less than a year to go before the 2012 Russian presidential election, what seemed at first like a tidy political stitch-up may yet turn out to be more messy affair as Dmitry Medvedev, president, and Vladimir Putin, prime minister, the only realistic candidates, publicly seem to be at odds over which of them will run.

Ever since Mr Medvedev came to power in 2008, on the coat-tails of Mr Putin, his political mentor, who was constitutionally prohibited from three consecutive terms, most Russians have simply assumed he was keeping the seat warm for his predecessor’s return to the presidency in 2012.

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