Putin: planning his escape from power?

Vladimir Putin’s victory in Russia’s presidential election on Sunday “was never in any doubt”, said The Economist. All viable challengers, such as anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, had been prevented from running. The Kremlin, concerned about low turnout, “resorted to bread and circuses”, offering music, entertainment and food at polling stations. There were some reports of ballot stuffing, but such blatant fraud was largely unnecessary. Putin, who remains genuinely popular, racked up over 76% of the vote on a turnout of 67%. His nearest rival, the Communist Party’s Pavel Grudinin, won 12%. President Putin will take his victory “as a mandate to continue his current course, one defined in large part by confrontation with the West”. Recent weeks have been filled with news of the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury and this, said Putin’s spokesman Andrei Kondrashov, had helped to unite the Russian people. “We need to say thank you to Great Britain,” he stated, “because they again misread the Russian mindset.”

Putin’s new term will run until 2024, said Tom Parfitt in The Times. By then he will be 71 and will presumably have to leave the Kremlin, because of the constitutional limit of two consecutive presidential terms (which he has already sidestepped once, by swapping jobs with his prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, between 2008 and 2012). He may even wish to step aside sooner: in recent months he has appeared jaded and “tired”. Paradoxically, Putin’s priority for his fourth term will be “to set up an escape plan” – if he can, said Andrew Roth in The Guardian. He needs to find a way to transfer power, while ensuring that he and his coterie – most of whom have vastly enriched themselves during their time in power – are not prosecuted by any successor.

During the campaign, Putin outlined two “contradictory” aims, said Kathrin Hille in the Financial Times. The first was to demand respect from the West, with his “invincible” nuclear weapons. The second was to launch economic reforms, in order to greatly improve living standards. In recent years, Russia has endured a “deep economic recession” thanks to falling oil prices and Western sanctions imposed since its annexation of Crimea in 2014. The “Crimea consensus” – the public’s willingness to endure hardship in return for opposing the West – has held so far, but it is “gradually eroding”. Still, there’s no sign of real change, said Andrew Roth. Support for Putin remains high, and Russians aged 18-24 are actually more likely to back him than any other generation. He is, it seems, “an immovable part of the landscape”.