Putin: Elected President or Illegitimate Dictator?

Russia’s highest court has opened the way for Putin to rule Russia until 2036. The ruling, slammed by Kremlin critics as a “sham”, approves constitutional changes to free the Russian president from term limits, after Russia’s highest court on Monday approved constitutional changes that opened the way for President Vladimir V Putin to crash through term limits and stay in power until 2036. The proposal, passed by the lower house of Parliament just hours after it had been introduced, would allow him to serve for an additional two six-year terms when his tenure expires. This is the first time Russians have voted to approve amendments to the country’s constitution, since the 1993 Constitution was introduced. With a dense 52-page ruling , the Constitutional Court removed one of the last obstacles to Mr. Putin effectively becoming president for life. The 68 year old ex KGB officer was first elected in 2000 after a year spent as acting President from 1999 to 2000, succeeding Boris Yeltsin after Yeltsin's resignation due to ill health. Putin was also Prime Minister for three months in 1999 and served a full term from 2008 to 2012. This would mean Putin would be entering his fifth term as Russian president (2000–2004, 2004–2008, 2012–2018 and May 2018 to present); making him the longest- serving Kremlin leader since Joseph Stalin.

Even more ironic is that the Russian Court, under Mr. Zorkin, historically ruled in 1998, that Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris N. Yeltsin, could not ignore term limits and run for a third term in 2000, when Putin took over and seemingly ignored this ruling and any notion of it; meaning the ruling has not been adhered to since its passing.

The Constitution

Officially, the amendments came into effect once the results of the July 1 vote were published. But Moscow bookstores have been selling copies of the new constitution for weeks, and the Kremlin began referencing it in draft bills as early as May, after a nationwide referendum on constitutional changes that was scheduled for April 22. Voting went on for a week, with state employees coerced into participating and with ballots stored in the offices of electoral commissions with ample opportunity for tampering. In previous elections, independent monitors had helped document fraud, most prominently in 2011, when large-scale ballot-stuffing in favor of Putin’s party led to unprecedented protests. This time, only those approved by government-controlled “civic chambers” could attend the count.

The exercise of forming the Russian constitutional changes, is little more than a formality because of the Kremlin’s tight grip on the news media and bodies responsible for organising the vote, not to speak of a ban on public protests. Cynicism about officialdom has been strengthened in recent days by the Kremlin’s insistence that it was surprised by a proposal approved by legislators last week to let Mr. Putin stay in office for another 16 years.

However, it is not difficult to guess what the results of an honest vote on Putin’s continued rule would be. With all the disclaimers of measuring public opinion in an authoritarian state, where many people are hesitant to give their opinion, the trends in Russia have been unmistakable. According to the Levada Center, the country’s sole independent pollster, public confidence in Putin has dropped to an all-time low of 25 percent. A clear majority of Russians – 58 percent – back the idea of age-limiting the president at 70; a seemingly ironic way of opposing Putin (who turns 68 this year) underhandedly. Prior to the vote taking place international poll watchers from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were not invited to make sure the election was fair for all parties, and their places were taken by carefully selected far- right politicians from Germany and Italy who praised the vote as “highly transparent.”

Opposition

Formally speaking, there was no campaign. The government was free to engage in unrestricted propaganda while its opponents had their websites blocked and their rallies prohibited, police raided Putin’s opposition groups before local elections, and his opponent Alexei Navalny, two news sites were blocked on the orders of Russia's prosecutor general's office. Not long before Mr Navalny ended up in a in a coma after suspected poisoning by toxic tea .In a statement, it said the blocks were imposed because of the sites' role in helping stage recent illegal protests.

What this means for the West?

In the West this should have game-changing consequences. While it could be said that Putin has lacked democratic legitimacy for some time – at least since 2003, when his party seized control of parliament in an election assessed by international monitors as “not fair” – he has been careful to stick to the formal letter of the law even as he violated the spirit.

In the past, he extended his power with tricks like naming a placeholder president or disqualifying opponents from running against him.

Historical dictatorships

This time, by subverting term limits, Putin becomes illegitimate not just de facto but also by right (de jure). Putin hereby joins a list of dictators who have reset their terms before him, from Blaise Compaoré in Burkina Faso to Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus, this year. As Senator Jim Risch (R-Id.), chairman the U.S. Senate’s foreign relations committee, has noted, “the sham vote[... ]has swept away all remnants of Putin’s legitimacy.”

So, what is next for Russia? Their seeming ‘Iron Man’ who has been leader since the debut of the Euro in 1999 as 'the European currency’, 3 US presidents, and since Apple launched; a lot has changed across the world — except for Putin’s rule of Russia. The prospect of Putin prolonging and strengthening his nihilistic reign is a terrible one for processes of democracy, the protection of out fundamental rights and upholding political fairness; but what can be done? Only Russia will know.