Russian President Vladimir Putin could be crowned 'Supreme Ruler' of the country after a government commission said it was considering the idea.
The Russian head of state, whose 'democratic' reign is often considered 'faked' or 'managed' by experts, claims to not take a view on the proposal, the Kremlin said today.
But the title change one of an array of possible alterations to the Russian constitution put forward by members of a government commission set up after Putin earlier this month said he wanted to change the Russian basic law.
Putin, 67, proposed his own constitutional changes, which were widely seen as giving him scope to retain influence once his current presidential term expires in 2024.
In 2012, William Partlett of American research group the Brookings Institution, called Russia a "managed" or "fake democracy" and Putin is often seen as totalitarian, despite presidential elections being held.
However the leader himself has said he does not favour the Soviet-era practice of having leaders for life who die in office, Reuters reports today.
The overhaul to the constitution proposed by Putin and which triggered a change in government, also cemented his control of the transition process.
It was also seen by some as an attempt to reduce intra-clan infighting between now and 2024, while allowing Putin to show he is responding to public discontent after years of belt-tightening.
The State Duma, the Russian lower house of parliament, has already given its backing to his reforms in a preliminary vote.
The government commission is considering further possible changes.
"There are... some very curious proposals among those put forward. For instance, they proposed renaming the position of head of state to 'Supreme leader'," Pavel Krasheninnikov, the government commission's co-chair, told the Rossiiskaya Gazeta government newspaper.
When asked about the idea today, the Kremlin was non-committal, calling it a "new initiative" and one of various proposals that may or may not be implemented.
"Right now all this is at the discussion stage," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "President Putin has no view on this."
Other proposals include formally recognising Russia's status as a "victorious power" in World War Two and recognising Orthodox Christianity as the country's main religion, the Kommersant newspaper reported.
"Naturally some (of the proposals) will be eliminated, some will be accepted and from this the commission's sought-after result will appear," Peskov told reporters.
Russia's TASS news agency said Vladimir Zhironovsky, leader of the nationalist pro-Kremlin LDPR party, had suggested the president be known as the Supreme Leader many times in order to move away from job titles derived from foreign languages.
