ABSTRACT
The election of Vladimir Putin as Russia's president on 26th March 2000 was noteworthy for three reasons. It was the first time in Russia's history that there had been a peaceful change of national leader registered through the public electoral process. It marked the successful transfer of power from the charismatic regime founder to a successor, a process which in some other countries has produced instability and disunity. And it constituted the coming to power of someone who, a bare eight months earlier, had had no national political profile at all. One of the issues which his election raises, and which will be examined in this chapter, is the consequences for the institution of the presidency,1 and thereby for the political system as a whole. The starting point for this analysis must be the Yeltsin legacy.
