Russian President will not seek 3rd term in office

MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin said Monday he won't seek a third term in 2008 but vowed not to allow "destabilization" in Russia following the vote, leaving the door open for drastic action in the event of a crisis.\nIn an interview with Dutch media on the eve of a visit to the Netherlands, Putin reiterated that he opposes changing the constitution to prolong his time in power -- a possibility that has been widely discussed because of his popularity and control over parliament.\nBut Putin said the 2008 presidential election will be a "serious, difficult test for Russia" and stressed that full power and responsibility for the fate of the country will remain in his hands until the new president is sworn in.\n"I will not allow any destabilization in Russia, in the interests of the ... peoples of the Russian Federation," Putin said in the interview with Dutch broadcaster Netwerk and financial newspaper NRC Handelsblad.\nHe did not elaborate, but the statement raised the possibility that Putin could take unpredictable measures in the name of stability in the event of unrest or a political crisis in the weeks between the election and the new president's inauguration.\nHe suggested such actions probably would not be necessary, saying he believes "the political forces in Russia are mature enough to understand their responsibility to the people" and the election would be a fair one in which the candidate with the most votes will win.\n"At the same time, I want to draw your attention to the fact that according to the constitution, authority is handed over to the new president after he takes the oath of office, and until then the current president holds full responsibility for the situation in the country," he said.\nRussia's experience with power transfers purely by election is limited: Putin was made acting president by Boris Yeltsin before Putin was first elected in 2000, and Yeltsin became president when Russia was still part of the Soviet Union.\nWith the Kremlin seeking increasingly tight control over politics and society and nervously eyeing other ex-Soviet republics where long-time leaders have been ousted recently, tension is palpable more than two years before the March 2008 election.\nPutin has repeatedly said he opposes changing the constitution to remain in power -- without strictly ruing it out -- and has also hinted vaguely of a continuing role for himself and said he will try to groom a successor.\n"Of course, I am not indifferent about whose hands the country that I have dedicated my whole life to ends up in," Putin said. "But if every new head of state who comes to power changes the constitution as he sees fit, soon there will be nothing left of this state"