SIX NEW YEARS WITH PUTIN

As expected, the incumbent president Vladimir Putin has won the election in Russia by a wide margin. With 76.6% of the votes cast, he has surpassed the result of the last two campaigns leaving his rivals far behind. The next two runners included a candidate from the Communist Party, Pavel Grudinin (11.77%), and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), Vladimir Zhirinovsky (5.65%). Ksenia Sobchak of the Civil Initiative became the fourth with 1.68% of the votes (1.24 million people).

Feeble opposition

In fact, the opposition has not nominated a common candidate for the elections. The founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund and the key Russian oppositionist, Alexei Navalny, was not registered as a candidate because of his outstanding conviction, while Sobchak or the leader of Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, obviously could not fit for that role. Navalny has accused Sobchak of working for the Kremlin in order to draw the votes of the protesting electorate and even announced a campaign to boycott the elections, to no avail though. The voter turnout was 67.54%, or 73.63 million people, which is 2% higher than during the 2012 elections.

The day after the election, Putin held a two-hour meeting with his rivals and it is interesting to guess their political roles from now on. Hypothetically, Grudinin can assume a post in the government, although he has demonstrated the worst result of the Communist Party since 1992. It is likely that Sobchak will succeed in promoting her political career further, while the scandalous candidate of all time, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has faced serious accusations immediately after the election. Renat Davletgildeyev, a reporter with Current Time TV, accused the veteran LDPR leader of sexual harassment. He has allegedly decided to reveal this story amidst the scandal around the State Duma deputy Leonid Slutsky, who is also accused of harassment by several journalists. Incidentally, there is an ongoing discussion in the social networks about the “behaviour” of other figures in power and big business. However, it is still difficult to say if this can lead to resignations and the decline of their political career.

Thanks to London for the victory?

Either way, Mr. Putin is immune from all these events. No one in Russian media, and mostly even in Russian social networks is questioning his uncontested victory. During both presidential terms of Putin, Russia has managed to secure a necessary political and economic stability. However, the country's economy has again faced problems in recent years showing extremely low rates of growth. For instance, it was not possible to eradicate poverty - as of 2016, about 20 million Russian citizens are living below the poverty line.

But Putin believes in himself. “We are doomed to succeed. Yes? Together we will take on a large-scale work for the good of Russia,” addressed Putin the crowd of his supporters at the Manezh Square in Moscow on March 18. The new old president later said that “strong civic involvement, responsibility, and consolidation is extremely important”, “especially in the current situation of difficult internal and external challenges.” In fact, the head of the Kremlin has not held a pre-election campaign, albeit he has promised to focus on increasing the real income of the population, halving the level of poverty, increasing life expectancy and birth rate, improving the living conditions and infrastructure of cities, business climate, and education. This requires a “real breakthrough” and patience, as “improvements will not come overnight; rather, they will be a result of a lengthy and scrupulous work”.

Meanwhile, the elections in Russia were accompanied by serious geopolitical concerns, which have left all internal squabbling and problems far behind: a promise of a new sanctions package by the West, a denial of access to the Olympic Games for the Russian team, a threat of boycotting the upcoming World Cup, and especially, the poisoning of the former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK. Not only has the case of Skripal spoiled the Russian-British relations but it also has been developing rapidly into the most serious confrontation ever between Moscow and the West.

It is surprising that many Russian and Western observers are confident of the benefits that Vladimir Putin has drawn from all these events. Putin's campaign spokesman, Andrei Kondrashov, said: “We must say thanks to Great Britain, for it has once again misjudged the Russian mentality. We were pressured exactly at the moment when we needed to mobilise”. In other words, Western sanctions in politics, economy, and sport have become just a brilliant contextual background for Putin's presentation of new Russian weapons and contributed to further strengthening his image of a strong ruler, which the Russian people need to survive as a nation and a state. According to this logic, Russians perceived the elections as a referendum of trust to Putin, and even those who did not intend to vote still came and voted. In this case, the following questions make sense: can one consider these events as an interference in Russian elections by the West? and can Ksenia Sobchak now put forward the same charges as did Hillary Clinton, who believes that Moscow helped her opponent during the American presidential elections?

There is no answer, of course. But we clearly feel the signs of a new Cold War. Western leaders have taken their time before they congratulated Vladimir Putin, while the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani were among the first who did so. After all, President Donald Trump phoned Putin to congratulate him too. According to the Kremlin, the presidents discussed the importance of limiting the arms race, combating international terrorism, prospects for economic cooperation, including in the energy sector, as well as their possible meeting. However, Trump’s phone call provoked a serious criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. According to The Washington Post, the Congress has urged Trump in written not to congratulate the Russian leader. The critics of Mr. Trump believe that the American leader does not respond properly to the actions of his Russian counterpart because his campaign headquarters is still in cahoots with the Russian government. Therefore, a meeting between the both presidents hardly ever takes place in the near future, as it is difficult for Trump to swim against the mainstream opinion in Washington and the mood set by the leading Western media outlets.

Indeed, the Western media gives Putin quite a bashing by highlighting the problems in Russian economy, which it calls the ‘Achilles' heel of the Kremlin’. According to the Time magazine, “neither Putin nor Russia will benefit from anything good in the near future... There is no evidence that Russia will adjust to this new reality by finally diversifying its economy. Even today, about 80% of Russia’s exports are directly related to oil and gas, according to the Carnegie Centre in Moscow. It will slowly become harder for Russians to maintain their standard of living, and the state will have less money to spend on both guns and butter.”  Many experts are convinced that Putin will not be able to materialise all his promises and the economic growth of the Russian Federation will remain record low (only 1.5%) under the current sanctions and tight budgetary policy.

So, who is Mr. Putin?

But the most striking thing is that most commentators are already thinking about the results of elections in 2024. “There is a misconception that Putin is tired, needs rest and wants to live the life of a billionaire. But Putin is far from being tired. He is interested in everything and digs into every matter, paying attention to all the details. This is his lifestyle, this is who he is. He cannot imagine life without power,” says M. Zygar of Time. “It is unlikely that Vladimir Putin suddenly leaves the office in 2024,” writes the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger. Indeed, the current term is the last one for Putin according to the constitution. Therefore, it is assumed that he has two options to choose from: to leave peacefully or to rewrite the constitution, as did the Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently. Yet another option, and the most acceptable one, is to retain the power without being a president. It is possible, for instance, to create a supranational body and to elect Putin as its permanent chairman. Alternatively, Putin can act like his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, by secretly preparing a successor before he actually announces his leave from the office.

Apparently, this attaches a certain degree of mysticism to the image of the incumbent Russian president. But it seems that Putin is also supporting this imperative and invulnerable image, albeit inadvertently: he rides a horse with a naked torso, swims in an ice lake, lifts an amphora from the bottom of the Black Sea, flies with a flock of cranes in Siberia... He often communicates with journalists and citizens but gives little information about himself. Strangely enough, after so many years in power, no one can give an exact answer to the question: Who is Mr. Putin? No wonder the most popular Google inquiries about Putin look extremely strange: “Is it true that Vladimir Putin is married?”, “Is it true that Putin is fabulously rich?” Or even “Is it true that Putin... died?”.

Either way, Putin remains the president of Russia for the next six years.