Putin Will Remain “Tsar” of Russia in 2018

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

This March 18, Vladimir Putin will again be crowned “tsar” of Russia at its next presidential election.

Others who have announced their candidacies include the far-right politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Yabloko party leader Grigory Yavlinsky, Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and television host Ksenia Sobchak. 

With Putin’s approval rating topping 80 per cent, none have a chance.

Domestically, despite western sanctions and the dip in the world price of oil, Putin has kept his country economically stable. 

In relations with former Soviet states in the “near abroad,” he has annexed the Crimea, with its ethnic Russian majority, and has provided aid to pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine. 

In foreign policy, he can point to Moscow’s successful intervention in the Syrian civil war as evidence that Russia is once again a major player internationally.

Russia has conducted joint military exercises with Egypt and signed a preliminary agreement for its air force to use Egyptian bases.

In December, Putin visited the Middle East and met with presidents Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt to discuss the future of the region.

All this has endeared Putin to most Russians, who believe in the importance of maintaining a strong state domestically and the need to project the status of a great power internationally.

There is probably no outright ballot-stuffing in Russian elections, but they’re not exactly free and fair.

The regime controls the largest television stations, which remain the main source of information for the majority of the population. And, given the close connection between business and the state, Putin has the ability to dissuade businesses from funding opponents of the regime.

Not everyone is allowed to participate in the elections; the Justice Ministry decides.

One of Putin’s main critics, the liberal Boris Nemtsov, was murdered in Moscow in 2015; many suspect the Kremlin of being behind the assassination. 

The dissident Alexey Navalny wants run, but officials say he will be barred from running for public office due to a conviction for embezzlement earlier this year, which he claimed was politically motivated.

Though far weaker than it was earlier in Putin’s presidency, the economy is predicted to grow by 1.7 per cent in 2017 after contracting by 3.1 per cent in 2015-2016.

But the decision to improve Russia’s armed forces, the result of the 2008 war with Georgia and the more recent interventions in Ukraine and Syria, has led to increased military spending.

Under Putin the country began to push back against Western hegemony. Some of this is due to American failure to treat Russia as an equal during the turbulent Boris Yeltsin years in the 1990s.

For Russians, this was a time of crony capitalism, political embarrassment, and international humiliation, and it enabled NATO to expand eastwards to the very borders of Russia.

The 2014 Ukrainian uprising that removed a pro-Moscow president and led to Russia’s incursion was the fault of the West, according to Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies at both Princeton and New York Universities.

“If you’re sitting in the Kremlin, and you see this as surreptitious NATO expansion,” right in neighbouring Ukraine, “do you do nothing?”

Putin thinks that the pro-democracy protests in Moscow in 2012 and in 2017 were propelled by Western efforts to undermine the regime and ultimately bring about regime change. 

Moscow also considers the recent Western attacks on Russia for allegedly meddling in elections in the United States and Europe as politically motivated.

Putin has turned a resurgent Russia into a personalistic dictatorship and the election will be little more than a referendum on his popularity.