2 October 20007 – New York: Putin the President, Putin the Prime Minister, Putin the Parliamentarian. Let’s state the obvious whilst enjoying another satisfyingly alliterative phrase:  Putin the puppet master.

The ex-KGB agent is barred from seeking a third consecutive term in the March 2008 presidential elections. But the announcement Monday that he’ll be topping the United Russia party’s list for Duma elections on December 2, has indicated that he is not going to lessen his grip on the Kremlin in any meaningful way, if at all.

Well, you’ve got to give him top marks for his sheer audacity, but nil points for democratic spirit.

Watching him toy with the Russian constitution while he engineers the next phase of his career has been like watching a rather clever cat hunt a mouse in a confined space. Its compulsive viewing, the ending is clear, the cat gets his quarry. The question and suspense lies in how.

I don’t think anyone expected Mr. Putin to bow out entirely from politics after Russia’s general election. He is after all genuinely and widely popular.

His intention to run for parliament has been billed as “surprising.” But surely it is not. What’s been really surprising is how hugely accommodating the Russian constitution can be. For the last few months Putin and his legal lackeys have exposed, with almost insolent glee, the document’s many gaping loopholes as if it was a big saggy sweater dragged through a Siberian ditch, clawed at by bears and mended by a drunken tailor in an unfashionable suburb of Moscow.

The Russian constitution is essentially worthless. It is chronically ill-suited to deal with a Machiavellian mastermind such as Putin who has had the whole show sewn-up for a long time. As a result his next move, whatever it is and wherever it leads, is guaranteed to be barely legal, impressively cunning and yet hugely popular at home.

When your country spans from Finland to Japan, is economically buoyant, and the serfs seems satiated, who needs international approval? It remains absolutely superfluous the concept and practice of political power in Russia. Just like how the constitution remains superfluous to how the game is played.

As one British newspaper said, Putin’s progression is an imminent “coup de theatre.” That’s a pleasing turn of phrase too, but I’d venture that plain old “inside job” is infinitely more appropriate.