MOSCOW, March 10. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday he thinks it possible to amend the constitution to make it possible for him to run for another presidential term. However, in his words, such an amendment is to be assessed by the Constitutional Court.
Addressing the State Duma lower parliament house, Putin noted that one of the initiatives voiced earlier by lawmaker Valentina Tereshkova "as a matter of fact means that there will be no limits for any one, any citizen, including the incumbent president, to run for president <…> only in case the citizens support such an amendment, say ‘yes’ at the nationwide voting on April 22."
"Generally, such an option would be possible but only under one condition: the Constitutional Court is to officially say that such an amendment would not run counter to the principles of the constitution," he stressed.
"Let us keep in mind: we are not working on a new constitution, we are only introducing amendments, significant but few amendments," Putin said, adding that he still thinks it inexpedient to change the constitution "even to settle matters of the presidential authority." The current constitution, in his words, "has not exhausted its potential, on the contrary, it has proved its efficiency."
"That is why, once a law on the constitutional amendments is adopted in the format I am speaking about it should obligatory be referred to the Constitutional Court for an official opinion," he said, adding however he thinks it inexpedient to "remove from the constitution restrictions on the number of presidential terms."
At a plenary session of the lower house earlier, Valentina Tereshkova suggested lifting restrictions on the number of presidential terms making it possible for the incumbent head of state to run for president once again. Under this amendment, the rule about not more than two presidential terms cannot bar an individual who was and/or is Russian president at the moment of the amendment’s enforcement from running for Russian president after the enforcement of the amended constitution. The number of previous presidential terms thus doesn’t matter.