Third name confounds Putin succession issue

8220;People talk about two possible candidates, but the President may come up with another surprise, and perhaps later this year you could learn about another possible figure,8221; he said, speaking at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

However, Putin8217;s First Deputy Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Shuvalov8217;s remarks 8220;cannot be taken as a statement of an official representative of the presidential administration8221;.

However, experts believe that Shuvalov 8220;spoke according to the appointed task8221; so as to 8220;confuse the public opinion8221; on the threshold of the decisive stage of 8220;Operation Successor8221;.

8220;Its goal is to keep confusing the public opinion in Russia and the West, so as to make everything as vague as possible. The more certainty in the successor issue, the sooner Vladimir Putin becomes a lame duck,8221; the Deputy Director General of the Political Technologies Centre Boris Makarenko told the leading Russian business daily Kommersant.

Putin has so far refused to name his successor, saying Russians will choose their next President in a free vote. He has also vowed not to amend the Constitution to allow him a third consecutive term, but recently suggested that the presidential term could be extended to five or seven years in the future. His backing will be of key importance for a presidential contender to win the elections.

Parliamentary elections will be held in December this year and the presidential elections in March 2008.

8220;Meanwhile, the situation is as clear as can be. Russia8217;s future President and Putin8217;s chosen successor is Ivanov, who already ranks among world-stage politicians, unlike Medvedev, the other possible hopeful,8221; said Vitaly Tretyakov, editor of Politichesky Klass magazine and Moskovskiye Novosti weekly, noting that 8220;other signs8221; too, suggested that Ivanov was the one, and no dark horse was likely to emerge.