US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an interesting slip of the tongue during a press briefing on her flight to Moscow.
"So while the trends have not been positive, this is a very complex place and I would note that there are people who are emerging who say that they are going to challenge the President, President Putin, in his next election."
Putin, of course, is not eligible to run for the Presidency in 2008 under the current constitution.
She was called on this comment by another of the reporters, and covered her slip by adding:
"On the matter of the presidency, I think everybody expects that since the Russian constitution prohibits a third term for the president that President Putin will respect that, and he has said it several times and obviously everybody expects that to be the case. And the point that I was making is that people are already sort of starting to talk about running and running for the presidency and challenging the President’s party and so forth. So I think that’s a positive development but obviously would not be a positive development if there were some change in that circumstance. I don’t expect that there will be. We take President Putin at his word."
What an interesting series of comments. One has to speculate whether this was a genuine slip of the tongue - it is at times very difficult to imagine a Russia without Putin at the helm - or whether Rice does have serious doubts that Putin will quietly relinquish the Presidency.
She didn’t just talk about whether Putin would run for the Presidency again, though. I’d really recommend that you read the entire briefing, if you get chance. It is a fascinating insight into how Condoleezza Rice views Russia, and I have to say her comments seem very well balanced to me - she was quite prepared to dish out praise as well as criticism where it is warranted.
