Five lessons from Putin’s orchestrated victory in Russia

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia emerged from the three-day, staged presidential election that ended Sunday, declaring that his landslide victory represented a public mandate to act as necessary in the war in Ukraine and on various domestic issues, fueling the unease . among the Russians about what comes next.

Mr Putin said the vote represented a desire for “internal consolidation” that would allow Russia to “act effectively on the front line” as well as in other areas such as the economy.

The government frowned on a protest organized by Russia’s beleaguered opposition, in which people expressed their dissent by flooding polling stations around noon. A correspondent for state broadcaster Rossiya 24 said that “provocations at polling stations were nothing more than mosquito bites.” Official commentators suggested that the rules demonstrated a zeal for democratic participation.

Putin, 71, will now be president until at least 2030, beginning a fifth term in a country whose constitution apparently limits the number of presidents to two. The vote, the first since the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, was intended to both create a public mandate for the war and restore Putin’s image as the embodiment of stability. Still, Russians are somewhat tense about the changes the vote could bring.

Here are five takeaways:

Although victory was a foregone conclusion, Putin’s numbers exceeded expectations.

There is a pattern in the presidential elections involving Mr Putin: his results are getting better every time. In 2012, he received 63.6 percent of the vote, and in 2018, after the presidential term was extended to six years, he received 76.7 percent. Experts expected the Kremlin to estimate the result at around 80 percent this time, but Putin got an even higher percentage, closer to 90 percent, although the count was not yet final.

The loyal opposition parties barely registered. None of the three other candidates allowed to vote received more than five percent of the vote.

Presidential elections in Russia have long served as a means to make the entire system appear legitimate. But such a large margin of victory for Mr Putin – who has reworked the constitution to allow him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036, when he will be 83 – threatens to undermine that. It could raise questions among an increasingly authoritarian Kremlin about why Russia needs such a sham exercise.

The Kremlin has not quite achieved the image of national unity it sought.

Mr. Putin always tries to project an image of political stability and control, which the carefully choreographed presidential elections are designed to polish. But this time there were three events related to opposition politics that marred that picture.

The first was in January, when thousands of Russians lined up across the country to sign the petitions needed to put Boris Nadezhdin, a previously low-profile politician who opposed the war in Ukraine, on the ballot. The Kremlin stopped him from doing so.

Then in February, Aleksei A. Navalny, Putin’s staunchest political opponent, died suddenly in an Arctic prison. Thousands of mourners who showed up at his funeral in Moscow sang against Mr Putin and the war, and even during the vote, mourners continued to lay flowers on his grave.

The Navalny organization had approved the plan to turn out voters in large numbers around noon, in a silent protest against Putin and the war. Mr Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, who voted at the Russian embassy in Berlin, said she had written her husband’s name on her ballot paper and thanked everyone who had waited in long lines as part of the protest.

But it was difficult to see how the protest could translate into any kind of sustained movement, especially in light of the repressive measures that have steadily tightened since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022. Putin’s government for example, has detained hundreds of people. people as they publicly mourned Mr. Navalny.

Mr. Putin will claim a popular mandate to continue the war in Ukraine.

Mr. Putin’s campaign, and the vote itself, has been shaped by the war. His announcement in December that he would seek another term came in response to a question from a war veteran who urged him to run for office. The election’s symbol, a check mark in the blue, white and red of the Russian flag, resembled the V that was sometimes used to show support for Russian soldiers.

Voting took place in the occupied regions of Ukraine, even though Russia does not have full control over the four regions it annexed. There were elements of coercion, with poll workers sometimes taking ballot boxes to people’s homes accompanied by an armed soldier. In the occupied territories, Putin’s margin of victory was even greater than in Russia itself.

Mr Putin has never acknowledged that he started a war by invading Ukraine. Instead, he says he was forced to launch a “special military operation” to prevent the West from using Ukraine as a Trojan horse to undermine Russia.

He described the turnout in the elections, which was over 74 percent of the more than 112 million registered voters, as “due to the fact that in the literal sense of the word, with weapons in our hands, we are forced to protect the interests of protect our citizens.” , our people.”

The war will remain an organizing principle for the Kremlin.

In his annual address to the nation in February, which served as his main campaign speech, Putin promised both guns and butter, asserting that Russia could pursue its war aims even if it invested in its economy, infrastructure and long-standing goals such as stimulating the Russian economy. population.

Because an estimated 40 percent of government expenditure goes to military expenditure, the economy grew by 3.6 percent in 2023, according to government statistics. The production of ammunition and other equipment is booming.

Mr Putin has also suggested that war veterans should form the core of a “new elite” to govern the country, saying their service proved their commitment to Russia’s interests. The proposal is expected to accelerate a trend in which government officials are expressing muscular patriotism, especially as Putin seeks to replace his older allies with a younger generation.

The Russians are worried about what will happen next.

The period after each presidential election is when the Kremlin usually introduces unpopular policies. For example, after 2018, Mr Putin raised the retirement age. Russians are speculating about whether a new military mobilization or more domestic repression is lurking.

Mr Putin has repeatedly denied that a new mobilization is needed, but recent small territorial gains in eastern Ukraine are believed to have cost tens of thousands of casualties. Although Putin has suggested he is ready for peace talks, neither side has shown much flexibility so far.

Russia has annexed more than 18 percent of Ukrainian territory and the battle lines have been at a standstill for months. Any new Russian offensive is expected to take place during the warm, dry summer months, and the Russian military could seek to increase the amount of territory it controls before future negotiations.

“The decisions will be more likely to be about war than peace, and more likely to be about military than about social or even economic matters,” said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist in exile in Berlin.

Milana Mazaeva reporting contributed.