US secretary of state condoleezza Rice said in a newspaper interview on Monday that Washington is concerned about the “concentration of power” in Russia, where Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he could become prime minister. Asked by the New York Post whether Putin was setting himself up to become “dictator for life,” Rice said she did not believe the Russian leader, whose second term as president expires next March, would try to change the constitution.“Well, he says that he will not change the constitution. I believe him. I think he won’t change the constitution,” she said, according to a State Department transcript of the interview.“I think the concerning thing about Russia right now is just the concentration of power in the Kremlin; leave aside the presidency itself,” she said. “But it’s quite obvious that there are not strong countervailing institutions. The legislature is not, the Duma is not, the courts are not.”It was unclear whether Rice spoke after Putin, who is constitutionally barred from running for a third consecutive presidential term, announced that he would run for parliament and that he had a “realistic” chance of becoming prime minister.
