Another win for Putin

As widely expected, President Vladimir Putin swept to victory in the Russian 2018 elections. Having won another six-year term without facing any serious challenge from his opponents, Putin will remain president of Russia until 2024.

His opposition within the country and his foes in the West consider him a tyrant and a modern tsar who will continue to crush dissent and crack down on street protests by using force.

On the other hand, to his supporters, he is a sign of stability and security and a symbol of Russian power. Whether or not a person likes him, it’s hard to deny that Putin has made a huge impact not only in his country but also across the world.

But there is one thing that can explain why Putin lacks democratic credentials. The main reason behind him being called a ruthless dictator is that the freedom of the press and any form of political expression and dissent are not allowed in Russia. Political activities are tightly controlled by Russian authorities; and the regime is believed to allow limited political and democratic rights to the Russian people. Putin is said to use various tools of repression, including intimidation, harassment, physical attacks and detentions, to control dissent and opposition. Although he has ruled the country with an iron hand and not allowed the development of an organised opposition, he has also offered an olive branch to some sections to maintain his support base.

But the Russian president is still popular among the Russian people. In the absence of a real alternate, he is the only choice for large numbers of people – including the majority of young people – who want to avoid uncertainty and instability in the country. His opposition comes mainly from the old, channelled through the Communist Party which has been allowed to operate as the main opposition. Putin’s biggest success, however, is to keep the opposition divided, by using state power to reconstruct politics according to his designs and plans.

After the March 18 elections, the Russian people’s vote has put him on course to have ruled for a generation. The results show a strengthened Putin against an increasingly feeble and bitterly divided opposition. His 2018 elections campaign slogan ‘Strong President – Strong Russia’ resonated robustly with a vast majority of the people and managed to overshadow the country’s sluggish economic backdrop.

According to official reports, Putin won 76.7 percent of votes, far above the 50 percent required to give him a first-round victory over his nearest rival, Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin who managed to get only 11.8 percent of the votes cast. Meanwhile, the other six candidates in the ballot performed badly. Ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky got 5.6 percent votes. The only candidate to openly criticise Putin during the campaign, Ksenia Sobchak, the liberal TV star, got 1.6 percent votes.

The Russian president has never faced a serious threat to his rule since he came to power in 2000. He won 53 percent of the vote in the 2000 presidential elections, 71 percent in 2004 and 63 percent in 2012. About 10 million more Russians voted for Putin in 2012 after the allegations of mass voter fraud at parliamentary elections sparked street protests.

Perhaps the most surprising result came from Moscow itself, where Putin won just 47 percent of the vote in the 2012 elections. But in the recently-concluded elections that were held on Sunday (Mar 18), he took 70 percent of the capital city, one of the main bastions of the opposition. The nationwide turnout on March 18 was around 67 percent, higher than that in the 2012 elections. This marked a triumph for the Kremlin, given its 70 percent turnout objective. Such high voter turnout suggests that simmering discontent remains largely under control and poses no real challenge to both Putin and the governing system he presides over.

When Putin arrived in office in 2000, Russia was just emerging from the 1990s’ disastrous market reforms and the 1998 financial crisis. The new president had no grand economic vision. While he slashed taxes to benefit the business sector, he also renationalised key sectors, starting with the breakup of political foe Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos Oil Company in 2003. He crushed the economic and political power of oligarchs which they amassed during the Yeltsin presidency and established his own.

Putin’s regime reasserted the role of the state in the economy. Unused manufacturing capacity and rising prices for oil – Russia’s main export – ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity, with real disposable income doubling between 1999 and 2006. He was also able to improve the standard of living of people: in 2000, 40 million Russian people were living below the poverty line while in 2017 the figure was reduced to 20 million, according to government officials.

But this capitalist development and growth also gave rise to inequality in Russian society. During the last two decades, capitalist exploitation, repression and class difference have jumped to unprecedented levels. In reality, this prosperity hasn’t really touched the lives of many Russians. Although the capitalist class, state bureaucracy, political elite and sections of middle class have enormously benefited from this economic development and progress, Russian workers and pensioners, and poor sections of the population have been left out of this progress.

On the other hand, this growth ground to a halt during the global financial crisis of 2008. While oil wealth stimulated growth, little progress was made to diversify the economy or modernise Russia’s industries.

Even before oil prices dropped and Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis came into effect in 2014, economists were predicting long-term economic stagnation. As former finance minister Alexei Kudrin reminded Putin during the president’s annual call-in show in April 2016, the seven percent annual GDP growth at the end of Putin’s first presidential term fell to just 0.6 percent in 2014, and the country’s economy is expected to enter recession this year (2018).

Rising unemployment and cost of living, soaring property rents, a declining economy and meagre wages and pensions are the major issues faced by the Russian working class. And these are the challenges that Putin must deal with in an effective manner.

The writer is a freelance journalist.