MOSCOW – Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has accused Russia’s leaders of rolling back democracy and advised Vladimir Putin to learn from the Arab experience and stay out of next year’s presidential vote.
"Vladimir Vladimirovich [Mr Putin] has already served two terms, and one more as prime minister. I would not run for president if I were in his place," Mr Gorbachev said in an interview published yesterday on his 80th birthday in the weekly Argumenty i Fakty.
“People . . . do not want to be a mass, a flock led for decades by the same shepherds,” he said, pointing to Arab unrest as proof. Toppled Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak “stayed too long, people were fed up with him”, he said.
A year before a presidential election in which Mr Putin, now prime minister, has hinted he will run himself or endorse President Dmitry Medvedev for a second term, Mr Gorbachev said Russia’s ruling “tandem” could not stay in power forever.
“Both of them must understand: their time is limited,” said Mr Gorbachev, whose 1980s reforms eased decades of oppression in the former Soviet Union but hastened its break-up in 1991.
After eight years as president, Mr Putin steered Mr Medvedev into the Kremlin in 2008 when term limits barred him from seeking re-election.
If Mr Putin were to return to the presidency after winning an election in March 2112, he could then run for another six-year term in 2018. – (Reuters)