National Post (National Edition)
Putin begins fourth term with promises of domestic focus.
BEGINS FOURTH TERM AFTER POLICE DETAIN PROTESTERS WHO CHANT ‘HE’S NOT OUR CZAR’
President Vladimir Putin, already the longest-serving leader of Russia since Stalin, launched into a fourth presidential term on Monday promising to focus on improving Russians’ lives at home but without backing down in his confrontation with the West.
Putin, in a brief inaugural address to thousands of invited guests at the Kremlin, emphasized the work he has to do at home, nodding to the long-term challenges Russia faces with a stagnant economy and a declining birthrate. He said Russia needed to expand freedoms for entrepreneurs and scientists, to invest in regional development, and to raise the quality of education and health care. A particular focus on “traditional family values,” he said, would ensure as many births as possible.
“Russia is a strong, active, and influential participant in international life,” Putin said. “But now we must use all the means we have at our disposal to, first, resolve domestic, most vital challenges of development.”
Putin was re-elected in March with 77 per cent of the vote, giving him a clear mandate despite allegations of ballot-stuffing in some regions.
Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader and his most outspoken critic, was barred from running over a politicized embezzlement conviction.
On Saturday, thousands demonstrated against the president under the slogan “he’s not our czar.” Police detained Navalny and some 1,600 other protesters, according to OVD Info, the independent monitor.
As are many of Putin’s events, Monday’s inauguration was meticulously choreographed for a television audience.
Before his speech, the 65-year-old leader arose from his office desk, donned a suit jacket and walked, for considerable time and with signature swagger, down the redlined Kremlin halls to a Russian-made limousine, state television showed. Putin then took the oath of office in the resplendent pink marble Andreyevsky Hall, the throne room of Russia’s czars in the Grand Kremlin Palace.
In an apparent bid to show the breadth of Putin’s popularity, activists and volunteers from Putin’s re-election campaign joined official dignitaries among the 6,000 guests. Also attending was American action star Steven Seagal, whom Putin presented with a Russian passport in 2016, and the leatherclad leader of a pro-Kremlin motorcycle club who is known as “The Surgeon.”
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder also came, prominently standing on the front row besides Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Orthodox Church, and Dmitry Medvedev, who served as prime minister in the last term and has been nominated for a new term.
“The purpose of my life will be, as before, service to the people, to our fatherland,” Putin said after he swore on Russia’s constitution.
Under the constitution, this six-year term is supposed to be Putin’s last, but speculation has mounted in Moscow that he will seek to hold on to power in some way after 2024, perhaps by taking on a new, leader-ofthe-nation role.
For now, Putin’s dominance of the nation’s political system seems ironclad. His popularity surged after he annexed the territory of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and many Russians have accepted his call to unite around the Kremlin amid the confrontation with the West. To his supporters, Western sanctions and accusations of Putin’s complicity in U.S. election interference or Olympic doping are simply means of keeping their country down.
In his patriotic inauguration speech, Putin focused entirely on Russia, but hinted at the standoff with the West when he said, “The country’s security and defence capabilities are reliably ensured. We will continue giving these issues the constant attention they need.”
In his state-of-the-nation address in March, Putin promised to halve the poverty rate over the next six years and to double government spending on roads, health care and regional development.
Until now, Putin’s promises to improve Russians’ lives at home have been overshadowed by conflict with the West — with everything from nuclear sabrerattling to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England for which Britain blames the Kremlin. There are some signs that Russians are growing impatient with slow economic growth and public corruption. Protests in the aftermath of a Siberian mall fire that killed 60 led to the resignation of a regional governor in April.