by PAUL A. GOBLE
The 1993 Constitution made Russia a presidential republic, but the addition of 469 new powers to that office in the 17 years since has transformed it into a “super-presidential” with negative consequences for all other political institutions in the country, according to a senior specialist on constitutional law at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.
Mikhail Krasnov conclusions on this point add weight to the arguments of politicians like KPRF head Gennady Zyuganov who has repeatedly said that the Russian president has more power than “did the tsar, the general secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and Chingiz Khan taken together” (www.nr2.ru/rus/325959.html and www.kommersant.ru/doc-y/1610440).
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