The Spy who will be King

By 2024, Vladimir Putin would have been in power for 24 years, coming close to Josef Stalin who ruled the then USSR for 31 years.

Vladimir Putin is a judoka, a former spy, a lover of outdoor adventure, someone who loves showing off his muscles -- and has an insatiable lust for power.

Last week, after months of will he?-won't he?, Putin pushed his protege Dmitry Medvedev, now Russia's president, out of the way and announced he would run for the Russian presidency again, in 2012.

Putin, his country's president from 2000 to 2008, is almost certain of election next year given his control over Russia's political system.

After being in power for 11 years -- the last three as prime minister -- Putin remains Russia's most powerful leader since the formation of the Russian Federation after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

An amendment in the Russian constitution now permits two six-year presidential terms; making way for Putin to stay in power for another 12 years.

By 2024, he would have been in power for 24 years -- coming close to the dreaded Soviet tyrant and mass-murderer Josef Stalin who ruled the then USSR for 31 years.

Dmitry Medvedev is expected to switch roles next year and re-serve as prime minister -- an office he held during Putin's earlier stint as president.

Since the Russian constitution then prevented three terms as president, Putin stepped aside in 2008 and allowed Medvedev to take charge. It was always felt he would reclaim the presidency after the constitution was amended, but Medvedev did not go quietly, raising the spectre of an unlikely rebellion.

If Medvedev, who is now a boyish 46, stays in unlikely favour with his mentor during Putin's likely double terms as president, he could still be president in 2024 (he will just be 59).

Medvedev tried unsuccessfully to shake off the legacy of the Putin era -- Russia is one of the world's most corrupt and dangerous nations -- but Putin and his allies remained in firm control at the Kremlin.

At the party congress where the announcement was made last week, Putin took the stage to find the microphone switched off, to which the former KGB colonel quipped, 'I will speak louder. My commander's voice has not yet been lost.'

During Putin's two-term presidency, political opposition was often brutally wiped out and democracy was stage managed in Russia.

Putin built his popularity on the back of strong economic growth (thanks to oil and gas revenues), but growth has suffered since and Russian markets fell to their lowest in two years last week.

Yet Putin remains popular with the Russian public, often making an impression with unconventional macho appearances -- riding a Harley Davidson bike at a bikers's meet, diving to the bottom of Lake Baikal, posing with a polar bear and skiing down a volcano.