Vladimir Putin Wins Russia for the Fourth Time
Vladimir Putin cruised to victory in the presidential elections of Russia, ensuring his position as Russia’s president for six more years. His fourth term as president will extend until 2024.
Vladimir Putin cruised to victory in the presidential elections of Russia, ensuring his position as Russia’s president for six more years. His fourth term as president will extend until 2024, making him the first Kremlin leader to serve two decades in power since Josef Stalin, clinching more than 76% of the total vote share.
As the emerging power on the world stage, Vladimir Putin commands immense loyalty among Russians. More than 30,000 crowded into Manezh Square adjacent to the Kremlin in temperatures of minus-10 degrees (15-degrees F) for a victory concert and to await his words.
After the results were declared, Putin came out to meet cheering supporters, “Thank you for your support,” Putin told crowds on Manezhnaya Square just under the Kremlin walls, wearing a black down jacket with a fur hood. “Everyone who voted today is part of our big, national team.”
Meanwhile election observers and individual voters reported widespread violations including ballot-box stuffing and forced voting during the election.
Since he took over the helm in Russia as its President on New Year 1999 after Boris Yeltsin’s surprise resignation, Putin’s electoral power has centered on stability, a quality cherished by Russians after the chaotic breakup of the Soviet Union and the wild capitalism during the Boris Yeltsin tenure.
It is evident as 65 years old Vladimir Putin has been the President since 2000, 2004 and 2012. He did not contest election in the year 2008 because of term limits, but was appointed prime minister after the election. It is the role in which he was popularly seen as leader.
This time voters appeared to be turning in out in larger numbers than in the last presidential election in 2012, when Putin faced a serious opposition movement.
In the election Vladimir Putin’s rival and vocal critic, anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny was not allowed to contest in the election because he was convicted of fraud in a case widely regarded as politically motivated. Navalny and his supporters had called for an election boycott but the extent of its success could not immediately be gauged.
In this election, the Russians had a choice of eight candidates, including the Communist leader Pavel Grudinin, whose title to a former state fruit farm has made him a millionaire, and Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin’s political mentor, who presented a liberal programme. They manage to secure only 12-13 percent of the total vote share.
The election in Russia was conducted amidst escalating tensions from the west, with reports claiming that Russia is behind the poisoning of the nerve-agent and a former Russian double agent in Britain this month and that its internet trolls had waged an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Both Britain and Russia has announced expulsions of diplomats over the spy case and United States has issued new sanctions.
Russia has clearly denied its involvement in both the cases and criticized the accusation as an effort to interfere in the Russian election. But these accusations worked in favor of Vladimir Putin, establishing the government’s official stance that the West is infected with “Russophobia” and determined to undermine both Putin and traditional Russian values.
In the next six years, Vladimir Putin is expected to assert Russia’s power abroad even more strongly. A week ago before the election, he announced that Russia has developed advanced nuclear weapons capable of evading missile defenses. The Russian military campaign that supports the Syrian government in its war against its rebel is also aimed at strengthening Moscow’s foothold in the Middle East and Russia eagerly eyes any reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula as an economic opportunity.
After the election it is expected that Putin is going to continue with little change trying to rebuild Russia as a global power while limiting economic reforms at home. While many believe, given his lame-duck status, the fight will now begin in earnest among the Kremlin elite to choose his successor.
In a late-night news conference broadcasted live on television, Putin said he could now begin thinking about changes in the makeup of the government. When asked by a reporter, if he was also planning any changes in the Constitution, that would allow him to remain in power beyond 2024, Putin said it was an odd night to ask such a question.
Though the election is regarded by critics as more of a referendum than a choice, but there is no question that Putin is widely popular among Russians. His picture with his campaign slogan, “Strong President, Strong Russia,” blanketed the country during the election and many voters who supported him echoed that sentiment.
Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet intelligence officer, hardly campaigned for the election, but was successful in making Russians understand by stressing his constant theme, that Russia is a fortress and that he is the only man, who can keep it safe by rebuilding its arsenal and projecting power beyond its borders, especially in challenging the United States.