Today, the entire Russian government stepped down.
In his statement on the government’s resignation, Medvedev indicated that it was doing so in order to make life easier for Putin.He said that the president had “outlined a number of fundamental changes to the constitution,” and that “in this context, it’s obvious that we, as the government … should provide the president of our country with the opportunity to make all the decisions necessary for this.”Those changes appear to be a redistribution of power, giving parliament the power to appoint a prime minister, who will then appoint a cabinet to be approved by parliament. In Putin’s own words: “In this case, the president will be obliged to appoint them; that is, he will not have the right to reject parliament-approved candidacies.”The Russian constitution forbids Putin from standing for re-election as president in 2024. However, there is nothing stopping him from becoming prime minister, as he did in 2008, when he and Medvedev swapped roles for four years.
This followed a week in which several European governments also fell:
Italian PM Guiseppe Conte resigned following withdrawal of support by the ultra-right under Matteo Salvini, leading to the collapse of the Italian government.
In the south of Italy the largest mafia trial in decades, the trial of the ‘Ndrangheta, is under way. The ‘Ndrangheta, penetrating the Italian and other governments as well as companies and police, is responsible for a huge volume of drug and human trafficking that it launders all over the world. The trial may well have a relation to Italygate, which in turn is likely the true cause of the collapse of the Italian government, a development predicted by Maria Strollo Zack early in January when she made her first public statements about the hacking of the election through a Leonardo satellite.
The Estonian government of Juri Ratas fell when it came under investigation for corruption.
The Danish government fell when PM Mark Rutte resigned over the state’s erroneous prosecution of parents for child welfare fraud.
German chancellor Angela Merkel will not be continuing in office in the parliamentary elections in September 2021, the country is facing its worst economic decline since the 2009 collapse, and after much chaos Merkel’s center-right party has just chosen its new leader, Armin Laschet.