MOSCOW, RUSSIA: While the world holds its breath to know who will succeed President Vladimir Putin, Russia's most famous astrologist says the answer is already in the planets.

Gazing into a Sony laptop computer, rather than a crystal ball, Pavel Globa predicted that Putin would pick either First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev or Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov to replace him in an election on March 2.

Why? Because 2008 is the Year of the Rat in the Chinese zodiac, which historically favours uncharismatic figures like the grey Medvedev and even more grey Zubkov, Globa told journalists at a Moscow hotel.

"They don't stand out. No one really knows what they're saying, but they seem to be doing something. That's the rat."

Putin's intentions remain one of world politics' greatest enigmas. Most analysts think the former KGB officer will handpick a close ally to fill his Kremlin seat -- with Medvedev and Zubkov believed to be high among the secret candidates.

But few analysts would dare show the confidence of Globa, a small and dapper man of 54 whose often rambling predictions for 2008 held in thrall an entourage of half a dozen female acolytes, aides and astrologers.

Globa claims an 85 percent success rate, including predictions of the Soviet collapse, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Not for him, or his followers, the veiled magicians and mediums crowding Russia's tabloid newspaper small ads.

"Astrology is not about crystal balls and cards," sniffed Globa fan Tatyana Dadasheva. "Well, there is a branch of astrology that deals with palms.... In fact you can also read legs, birthmarks, anything. But we don't look in crystal balls."

Certainly Globa's special computer programme, combining birth dates with terrestrial and celestial data into a zodiac circle crossed by intersecting lines, left no doubt.

"It's either Zubkov or Medvedev," he said. "The winner will be a puppet to our president who will step down but retain a huge role."

The real uncertainty for Russia will follow, he warned, since the Year of the Rat always brings hope for change, followed by disillusion.

"1936 was the year of the rat and it seemed a quiet year. Hitler was still rising to power, Stalin hadn't launched into his excesses," said Globa, now living in Berlin.

"2008 will be the illusion of hope and change. We will put our hopes in the year (but) Russia needs to prepare for crisis in 2012," he said.
The good news, according to Globa, is that if Russia can hang on another few decades, a "future heaven" awaits.

Global warming means that currently chilly Russia will "enter a rather comfortable situation with a better climate, a population explosion, and a country where you can grow lemons, pineapples, champagne."

Predictions for Globa's future might not be so rosy, though.

He shot to popularity in Russia after the Soviet collapse of 1991 when people were desperate to know their fate and astrologers were suddenly free of stifling Soviet restrictions.

However, the pendulum has swung back and although Globa still has a five-minute slot early in the morning on the TNT cable channel here, he's lived in Germany for the last nine years.

In Russia many people say "astrology is nonsense, charlatanism, or the devil's work," he says.

Alexander Sviyazh, a Moscow psychologist, said there are simply fewer takers for fortune-tellers in Putin's Russia.

"It was hugely in demand during the 1990s because everything was uncertain and people looked for salvation and for clues to their lives," he said.

Now "people are more materialistic. People who are not desperate ignore it. Only people with some extra money can afford to fantasise and get their horoscopes done, but for fun."