Limited suspense, maximum staging. It is at the turn of a conversation described as “ spontaneous » by the Kremlin that Vladimir Putin announced, Friday December 8, his candidacy for the presidential election of March 17, 2024. At the end of a decoration ceremony at the Kremlin, the president was questioned by one of the “heroes” all just decorated. “On behalf of all the people, on behalf of Donbass, I would like to ask you to participate in these elections, because there is still a lot of work…”launches Artiom Joga, commander of the “Sparta” battalion of the “Donetsk People’s Republic”, attached to Russia in September 2022.
Mr. Putin’s response, delivered in a barely audible voice, in a confidential tone: “I won’t hide it from you, I had different ideas at different times. But you are right, the time has come to make this decision. I will be a candidate for the office of President of the Russian Federation. »
This announcement, at a minimum, almost discreet, is already presented in the Russian media as a confirmation of the modesty of the Russian president, entirely occupied with his task. It also probably sets the tone for the upcoming electoral campaign – perfectly bleak – in which the election of Mr. Putin must be seen as a formality, an obvious fact.
“Without superfluous show”
November 20, the daily Kommersant reported on the training seminar organized in Moscow for vice-governors and heads of electoral commissions of Russian regions. Instructions passed on this occasion by the Kremlin strategists: “a calm countryside, without superfluous shows” and whose result equals or exceeds that of 2018, which saw the president win with 76.69% of the votes.
Most of it had actually been accomplished in 2020, when the Kremlin led a lightning offensive to amend the Constitution in a way that would allow Mr. Putin to ” back to square one “ his mandates and to run twice more for the supreme office. At the time, without however announcing his plans for 2024, the president justified this maneuver by “the need for stability in an unpredictable and uncontrollable world”. However, the world described by the Russian president has not exactly calmed down since.
The highlighting, for this announcement, of a soldier from the “new regions” (an expression used in Russia to designate the Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia) gives another indication of the message that this campaign will convey: Vladimir Putin, 71 years, in power since 1999, will appear there as protector of the nation. In other words, it is in the name of a war that he himself started that Vladimir Putin is devoting himself to remaining in the Kremlin. “A slave on his galley”he described himself in 2008…
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