New confidence
Putin gains massive mandate for his nationalist policies
Russian President Vladimir Putin, boosted by a landslide reelection win, flexed his nationalist muscles Monday, declaring that he will defend Russia’s interests for another six years without an arms race.
Putin won his fourth presidential term Sunday with nearly 77 per cent of the vote — his strongest electoral support ever. The result gives Putin new confidence to stand up to the West and deploy Russia’s resurgent power on the world stage.
“We have no intention of engaging in some kind of arms race,” Putin said, speaking at a meeting with his seven defeated presidential challengers in the Kremlin. “Just the opposite, we will seek to develop constructive relations with other countries. We will do all we can to solve all disputes with our partners using political and diplomatic means.”
The Russian presidential election came amid escalating Cold War-like tensions, with accusations Moscow was behind the nerve-agent poisoning this month of a former Russian double agent in Britain and that its internet trolls had waged an extensive campaign to undermine the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Those accusations ultimately bolstered Putin at home among those who see him as their defender against a hostile outside world.
Putin’s support at the ballot box, accompanied by a heavy turnout at 67 per cent, marked his best electoral performance ever. In previous races, he won 53 per cent of the vote in the 2000 presidential election, 71 per cent in 2004 and 64 per cent in 2012.
With 99.8 per cent of the vote counted, the Central Election Commission said Monday that communist Pavel Grudinin came a distant second with 11.9 per cent support. Third was ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 5.7 per cent. The only candidate to openly criticize Putin during the campaign, liberal TV host Ksenia Sobchak, won just 1.7 per cent.
Putin’s most serious rival, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was barred from running because of a fraud conviction widely seen as politically motivated. It’s not clear what effect, if any, Navalny’s call for a boycott had on the presidential race.
Both he and Sobchak, who had clashed during the campaign, were silent Monday, their future plans unclear.
Despite the landslide, Putin still faces enormous challenges. He needs to diversify an economy that is still heavily dependent on oil and gas and to improve medical care and social services in regions far from the cosmopolitan glitter of Moscow.
Putin also needs to make a key strategic decision: whether to groom a preferred successor or try to stay at Russia’s helm beyond 2024, either by scrapping term limits like China just did or by shifting into a new position of power.
When asked if he intends to initiate changes in the Russian constitution that could eliminate term limits, Putin answered that he has no such plans “yet.”