Given that Russia has shied away from making any changes to its constitution since it was enacted in 1993, eyebrows were raised at the haste with which so momentous a reform was broached. Over the eight years that Mr Putin was president, he consolidated his grip on power by abolishing regional elections for governors and neutering pressure groups, the media and parliament itself. But each time, the Kremlin was careful to go through the motions of democracy, with long debates preceding each clampdown.