Explained | Putin, presidency and elections — a race of convenience for indisputable rule

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday (Dec 8) announced that he will be again running for president in the 2024 presidential election – a move which is most likely to keep him in power till at least 2030.

The election will be conducted in a span of three days starting from March 15-17 and the winning candidate will become the next president in the month of May.

The Russian parliament’s upper house voted for the date of elections on Thursday (Dec 7), which also marked the start of the election campaign.

This time, voting will also be conducted in what Russia refers to as its new territories – which are the parts of Ukraine where the Russian forces have gained their control. Ukraine has said it will not stop till it has removed every Russian soldier from the annexed territories.

In Russia, nearly 110 million people have the right to cast their vote, although usually around 70-80 million people turn up for voting. In 2018, the turnout was 67.5 per cent.

On the last day of 1999, Putin was handed over the presidency of Russia by Boris Yeltsin and till now he has already become the longest-serving Russian president since Josef Stalin, breaking the record of even Leonid Brezhnev, who was the president from 1964 to 1982.

The 1993 Russian constitution, which is loosely based on the 1958 constitution of France, was perceived by some in the West as a step which would lead post-Soviet Russia towards democracy. The constitution originally had stated that a president can only serve for two successive terms which will be four years each.

In the amendments made in 2008, the presidential term was extended to six years and amendments introduced in 2020 gave Putin the power to run for the post of president for more than two six-year terms after 2024. This means, that if he is elected this time he will remain president till 2030 and if he manages to clinch victory post that, then Putin will remain president of Russia till 2036.

With the Russian State Duma considered a “rubber stamp” body which lacks influence and just plays the role of a vote-button-pushing automaton for the government, several questions arise over Putin’s chances of winning the elections and how fairly they would be held.

Putin is considered as a war criminal by the West but that fails to reflect in the Russian opinion polls where he is shown to have approval ratings of 80 per cent, which is higher than his approval ratings before Russia invaded Ukraine.

As per the Kremlin, Putin has been enjoying overwhelming support from the people of Russia and the country is not interested in being lectured about democracy by the West and that there are no politicians in the West who have similar approval ratings as that of Putin.

It is most likely that Putin will face very little or no real competition in the elections. In the voting held in 2018, the man who came second after Putin was Communist tycoon Pavel Grudinin. Grudinin was able to garner less than 9 million votes, or just 11.8 per cent, as per the official results.

The most well-known opposition politician in Russia is Alexei Navalny who was earlier poisoned and is now in prison so he cannot run for the presidential elections.

Watch: Putin sends message to the world with election announcement

Navalny has claimed that Russia is currently being run by thieves and criminals and warned that the leaders of Russia will be ultimately crushed one day for creating a bloodbath in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who has been kept in custody and awaiting trial for inciting extremism, in November had expressed his willingness to run for presidential elections even though he said that the polls will be a “sham” as the winner is already decided. When the elections will take place, he will be behind bars.

The man, who turned out to be the biggest direct threat to Putin’s unchallenged rule, was the most powerful mercenary in Russia, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Prigozhin’s short-lived mutiny in June sent thunders into the Kremlin and shook Putin’s throne, leaving the world wondering if this was the end of his rule.

However, after two months Prigozhin was killed in a suspicious plane crash and the remnants of his Wagner force went under the control of Russia’s allies.

(With inputs from agencies)