Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA / POOL / AFP
Vladimir Putin president for life? The undisputed leader of Russia, re-elected this Sunday with 87.28% of the vote, is not about to abandon his throne. While he would normally give up his place in 2024, a law, adopted in 2020, offers the master of the Kremlin the possibility of reigning supreme until… 2036. He will then be 84 years old.
Until 2020, the Russian Constitution prohibited holding more than two consecutive mandates. Reason why Vladimir Putin stepped down in favor of his Prime Minister, Dmitri Medvedev, in 2008, when he was completing his second term, four years at the time. Until 2012, however, Putin retained significant control over the destiny of his country, in his capacity as president of the government.
Navalny criticized the referendum as a “huge lie”
But from 2008, a constitutional amendment already foreshadowed the desire to sustain the action of the master of the Russian Kremlin. That year, the length of the presidential mandate increased from four to six years and Vladimir Putin, widely elected in 2012, completed, in 2018, his 14th year at the head of a country that he would lead for six more years, until in 2024, at the end of a vote marred by irregularities. And so it is in 2020 that Putin definitively lifts the veil on his ambitions.
Submitted to referendum, a constitutional reform, approved by 78% in 2021, resets the counter of the number of past or current presidential mandates. By this means, Vladimir Putin grants himself the right to run for two new mandates starting in 2024. In reality, the limitation to two successive mandates remains in force but “does not apply to those who occupied the position of head of the “State before the entry into force of the amendments to the Constitution”. Since 2021, therefore, nothing stands in the way of the master of the Kremlin remaining in power until 2036. “Let them adopt a law allowing the president to live forever”, tweeted then, not without irony, the opponent Evgeni Roïzman, former mayor of Yekaterinburg, whileAlexeï Navalny, the Kremlin’s fiercest opponent, who died in detention last month, described this referendum as a “huge lie”.
Сегодня Путин подписал дважды быть президе нтом.
Then you will be given the right to be released by the president today.
In fact, it’s true that it’s true that I’m thinking about what I’m talking about, You also need to cover the original parts.— Евгений Ройзман (@roizmangbn) April 5, 2021
Guaranteeing “stability, security and prosperity” of Russia
Conversely, Vladimir Putin justified this sleight of hand by the need to guarantee Russia’s “stability, security and prosperity”. And added that, thanks to this reform, the country would no longer need to get lost in “a quest for potential successors”. The master of the Kremlin therefore laid the first stone of this building on Sunday with this broad re-election. If several international leaders – the Chinese Xi Jinping or even the Indian Narendra Modi – sent their congratulations to Vladimir Putin, most Western chancelleries refrained from any laudatory comments. Berlin, London, Paris and the head of European diplomacy have, conversely, castigated a vote under duress, without opposition and in full repression.