Observers say the Russian leader’s recount of nearly 90 elections marks a definitive break with Western conventions.
Vladimir Putin is approaching electoral limits. By winning a landslide record of 87. 28 votes against a turnout of 77. 44 on Sunday, Putin entered the stratosphere of post-Soviet election effects.
It’s a mathematical axiom for any president for life: deserve never to decrease, only increase; Voter turnout is never worth overlooking, but only being overlooked. And while Putin’s one-man rule spans more than a quarter-century, Russian officials keep an impassive face even as they publish astronomical figures that would make many convinced autocrats blush.
The Russian president is now inscribed in the firmament along with vanquished autocrats Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, whose cult-of-personality regimes were propped up by tightly controlled electoral changes in the 1980s and 1990s until their deaths.
But Putin can go even further, in full orbit with men like Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was given more than 95% in his last two elections, or Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who won more than 97% in his last two elections.
The record holder is Saparmurat Niyazov, the leader of Turkmenistan who won 99. 5% of the vote in 1992. In 1998, he erected a 12-meter-tall gold-plated statue of himself that swivel to face the sun.
“An official result of 87 percent may seem ridiculous, but it is a logical end result for the authoritarian personalist formula that Vladimir Putin has constructed,” said Ben Noble, an associate professor of Russian politics at University College London.
As he described, the pressure on the effects comes from above and below. ” The official voting figures are the result of a clear signal from the presidential leadership to produce an even better result than in 2018 and of the efforts of lower-level officials to impress their superiors, any of whom are pushing the effects higher and higher. “
This year, Putin was expected to cast a vow as he faces one of the most turbulent periods of his 25-year rule. This was the first election since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Tensions with the West are at an all-time high. And Russia is facing unprecedented sanctions as its economy is governed by state-owned industries, in addition to the defense sector.
In his victory speech, Putin drew a direct line between the war and his landslide election victory. The victory is due to “the drama of the occasions that the country is going through. . . to the fact that we are literally obliged to protect the interests of our citizens, our other peoples, weapons in hand, to create a long term for the country. “A full, sovereign and secure progress of the Russian Federation, our motherland,” he said. “The results, and especially the turnout, show that ordinary people feel this way and perceive that a lot depends on them. “
That’s their story. Not everyone believes it. European nations on Monday issued an unprecedented complaint about the election. Germany said it did not recognize the effects as “legitimate” and a spokesman did not directly respond to a question about whether Putin would be called “president. “We don’t have any conversations with Vladimir Putin, so it’s not a consultation at the moment,” the spokesman said.
David Cameron, the British foreign secretary, said the scale of Putin’s supposed victory “clearly underscores the intensity of repression under President Putin’s regime, which seeks to silence any opposition to his illegal war. “opponents, controls the media, and then is crowned victorious. This is not democracy.
Members of the Russian opposition called on the foreign network to claim that the effects were illegitimate. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch now living in exile, said before the vote that one of Putin’s main goals was to show foreign leaders that his rule over Russia was strong. He suggested that they not approve of the effects.
For Alexander Baunov, senior researcher at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, the figures mark “the definitive break with Western conventions. “
He said: “The first component of Putin’s government took a stand with the tacit popularity of Western rules. . . [but] 85% when elected for a fifth term is all a sovereignization of numbers, a turn to the East and one of the means of communication that the Russian regime now operates according to legislation that has not even a superficial relationship with those of the West. “
The election was also aimed at stabilizing Putin’s strength at home, where the greatest risk to his government may come not from a democratic opposition, but from conservative forces, including those in his own government, to whom he has entrusted the leadership of the Russian government. vast state and security apparatus.
Noble called the election result “a vital signal mechanism for various audiences, especially the elite. “The message is that Putin is still firmly within the scenario and is capable of achieving a landslide election victory, adding by using various types of manipulation. This will likely deter members of the elite from thinking about a post-Putin globality for the time being. “
There will be a post-election hangover with the easing of populist measures taken through the government to reduce fuel and food costs. (Major breweries have already warned stores that beer costs will soon rise by 8% to 15. )
Abbas Gallyamov, Putin’s former speechwriter, said that “the holidays are over, the race week begins. Soon, other people will start to feel more powerful because they’ve been deceived: they promised one thing, but they promise something absolutely different. “
But the Kremlin will cajole, coerce or falsify those votes in 2030 and into 2036, when Putin will most likely seek even bigger numbers.