Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want to wait for a formal event to announce his candidacy for re-election. In a conversation with soldiers who have taken part in the military campaign in Ukraine, yesterday he confirmed what everyone already knew: that he will run in the next presidential elections, scheduled for March 17, 2024, to continue ruling Russia at least another six years.
Putin has dominated politics and the media in Russia for the past two decades. He has been in power since the last day of 1999, when Boris Yeltsin resigned. Since that moment he has been the president of Russia, except for four years (2008-2012), in which he served as prime minister to circumvent the constitutional rule that prohibited holding the presidency for more than two terms, then four years, in a row.
The 2020 reform of the Constitution, which he himself promoted, allows him to run again and exercise power for another two terms of six years each.
With his certain victory, Vladimir Putin, who is now 71 years old, will remain in the Kremlin at least until 2030. But since he will be able to compete once again, he will have the possibility of remaining in power until 2036, which would surpass the leader Soviet Joseph Stalin.
Putin revealed his plans to seek re-election at a decoration ceremony on the occasion of Heroes of the Fatherland Day, which is commemorated today, December 9. Artiom Zhoga, speaker of the parliament of Donetsk, a region annexed by Russia last year, asked him if he was going to run again. The head of the Kremlin said yes. Afterwards, Zhoga explained what the Russian leader's response was. “In response, he said that there are different, difficult and complicated times, but that at this moment he will be with the people and will run for re-election.”
Putin's announcement came a day after the Federation Council (the Senate of the Russian Parliament) called presidential elections for March 17. That is the official date. But the Central Electoral Commission announced yesterday that the right to vote can be exercised for three days (from the 15th to the 17th), which "has become traditional for our electoral system," explained its president, Ella Pamfilova. This form of voting was used for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic in the referendum that approved the aforementioned constitutional reform.
Opponents of the Kremlin do not agree with this system because they believe that voting for 72 hours makes it very difficult to monitor the vote and allows electoral fraud to be committed more easily. For the same reason, they also oppose electronic voting.
If few in Russia can say that they were surprised by Putin's announcement, after the vote there will also be few who say that they are surprised by his victory.
These will be the first presidential elections held in Russia in the middle of a war. The conflict with Ukraine, which was expected to be short and easy when Putin ordered the army to enter another country in February 2022, has become entrenched; Russia has fallen out with Western countries, which have imposed strong economic sanctions, Russian troops have not achieved a significant victory on the front for months and hundreds of thousands of Russians have left Russia, especially when in the autumn of last year It mobilized more than 300,000 reservists.
But the Government applied economic, financial and monetary countermeasures to confront Western pressure, and the Kremlin has sought new support and economic partners, such as China or India, in an attempt to show that it has not been left isolated.
On the political level, it has increased repression of the opposition and created laws to punish criticism of the army and military actions in Ukraine. As a result, most opposition leaders are in prison or exile and critical media outlets have closed. Power continues to dominate the narrative received by the majority of the Russian public.
Today Putin's popularity continues to hover around all-time highs. Polls suggest that Putin will have no problems winning. What's more, he is expected to achieve more than 80% of the votes, even surpassing the large victory of 2018 (76%). The independent Levada Center gave him 82% support in October. And a survey by the Public Opinion Fund, published on Thursday, indicated that 78.5% of Russians trust the head of the Kremlin and 75.8% approved of his management as head of Russia. Only 8% believe that he should leave politics. In that tiny percentage we would have to include Alexei Navalny, Putin's most critical and charismatic opponent in the last decade. Officially, the head of the Kremlin ignores him and tries not to pronounce his name in public. But the judicial system has not done so. Today he is serving decades in prison, accumulating several sentences that he and his followers consider political revenge for power.
From prison, Navalni, 47, will also participate in a very peculiar electoral campaign, although neither he nor his allies can appear. In a message that he sent to his Telegram channel on Thursday, he assures that these elections "are for Putin a referendum to approve his actions, to approve the war." Although he considers them a “parody,” Navalny rejected the boycott of the elections and called on Russians to vote “for any other candidate” other than Putin. “The final results, as usual, will be manipulated,” the opponent accused. “But any choice, even the most false one, is a time for doubt. “People are wondering who is in power and why,” he added.
