Nigel Gould-Davies
Vladimir Putin’s overwhelming victory in Russia’s 2024 presidential election was a foregone conclusion. But the conduct and context of the vote offer three insights into the country’s condition and point to the regime’s likely evolution.
The first indicator is how far the Kremlin went to ensure Putin’s victory. In a civil society and media landscape flattened by repression, it nonetheless chose a small field of candidates who presented no challenge. The anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin was barred from running after an unexpectedly vigorous registration campaign, and members of his team have since been arrested. A month before the election, Putin’s most articulate critic, the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was silenced.
Even with these restrictions, the results – a record turnout (77%) and vote for Putin (87%) – were certainly falsified, as past elections were, such as the 2020 referendum that changed the constitution to allow Putin to run again. The use of electronic voting, for the first time in a presidential election, added a further layer of opacity. Official results even claim that 72% of Russians abroad, many of whom have fled the regime, voted for Putin. The outcome also humiliated the docile and obliging ‘systemic opposition’ that had long participated in the theatre of managed competition. The election was instead an emphatic performance of power that left nothing to chance.
Secondly, the Kremlin ran this as a war-time election from the start, when Putin announced his intention to run at a meeting with serving soldiers. This was not inevitable. Ever since the regime failed to win a rapid, easy victory in Ukraine, it has been adapting Russia’s economy and society to a slow, hard war. This has meant testing and learning to what extent elites and society will bear its growing costs. In doing so, the regime has sought to resolve a dilemma. Should it maintain a semblance of normality, minimising the visibility of the war in the eyes of a population that it has long sought to keep politically apathetic? Or should it mobilise active commitment even as it imposes ever-greater repression? The Kremlin’s management of the election, with its overt appeals to the war in Ukraine, has confirmed it is moving towards the latter.
The third implication of the election is the weakness of public opposition. Beyond a few cases of vandalism in polling booths, the ballot provoked little active resistance. The ‘Noon against Putin’ action on the last day of voting saw thousands of voters go to the polls simultaneously as a way of signalling their opposition without breaking the law (though the Moscow prosecutor’s office declared it illegal) – much like attending Navalny’s funeral or visiting his grave has been.
The action was less a challenge to the regime than a way for those taking part to encounter like-minded citizens and keep the flame of protest alive. But, in absolute terms, the numbers of those who took part were small. By contrast, rigged elections in Ukraine in 2004 and Belarus in 2020 both led to widespread national protests. In Ukraine, these forced fresh elections, this time free and fair, to be held. In Belarus, they came close to toppling a regime even more repressive than Russia’s. In comparison with its eastern Slavic neighbours, Russia stands out for its passivity.
An emboldened regime
Having successfully managed a war-time election, Putin is now likely to build a war regime. Military and security needs – already allocated almost 40% of the state budget – will have the first claim on resources. Promotion and preferment will increasingly be based on contribution to the war. Putin’s 29 February address to the Federal Assembly, a manifesto for his next presidential term, dwelt on how Russia was meeting the ‘trials and bitter losses’ of war. He spoke harshly of the ultra-wealthy who ‘have done nothing for society’, especially those who gained their fortunes in the turbulent 1990s. He extolled instead the ‘hard workers and military, reliable, trustworthy people who have proven their loyalty to Russia by deeds’.
Other elites less securely tied to Putin also face difficult times. Last December, a wild celebrity party in Moscow provoked a fierce and unexpected backlash from conservative forces that contrasted the party’s excesses to the army’s sacrifices. Several prominent cultural figures, none of whom had criticised the war in Ukraine, were arrested or forced to apologise. As it remakes itself around the needs of war, the regime is not only suppressing civil society but also intimidating the privileged.
A post-election government reshuffle may offer clues as to how quickly these trends will escalate. The biggest canary in the coalmine is Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. A capable technocrat rather than a silovik (military or security official), he has served Putin’s war faithfully but without enthusiasm. His replacement, especially by someone closer to the siloviki, would confirm the regime’s evolution onto a military footing.
Putin appears more confident now than at any time since the war began that Russia can meet its economic costs and bear its political strains. This, and uncertainty about the future of Western commitments, embolden him to continue the war. In December, he signed a decree to increase troop numbers by 15%. In March, he ruled out negotiating with Kyiv ‘just because they are running out of ammunition’.
All this suggests that Russia’s war in Ukraine, and by extension its war against the West, will increasingly become the raison d’être of Putin’s rule. Those who think a negotiated end to the war is feasible, and that Ukraine’s unwillingness to compromise is the main obstacle, would do well to ponder this.
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