Putin, the tsar plebiscite

They have been plebiscitary elections, organized to obtain maximum participation and the endorsement of a single real option, which have given Vladimir Putin his fifth term at the head of the Russian Federation.

Counting his period as prime minister between 2008 and 2012, Putin is on his way to three decades in power, thus surpassing Stalin's record of 29 at the head of the USSR.

None of the appearances of pluralism that had been preserved in previous elections, when Russia was still subject to scrutiny by the Council of Europe, from which it was expelled in 2022, have been respected. Without any external control, all suspicions hang over the exclusion of alternative candidates, the electoral campaign, the voting system and the scrutiny.

No legitimacy can be deduced from the high participation and 87% of the votes in favor of the incumbent president, especially because his system has destroyed any shadow of pluralism and political freedoms while it has perfected police control of the population, the media and the economy.

The suspicious death in prison of the main opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, weeks before the elections served to close the possibility, even remote, of an exercise of democracy in Russia.

Putin presides over a country burdened by declining demographics, the flight of some of its most productive elites and growing dependence on China for commercial and financial connections with the world and on North Korea and Iran for weapons supplies.

The leader who once rubbed shoulders with his Western counterparts now has an arrest warrant against him from the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Ukraine, forcing him to carefully limit his movements.

His fourth presidential term will be forever linked to the invasion of the neighboring country two years ago.

That the population of the occupied areas was forced to vote is another symptom of the imperial intentions of the Kremlin tenant.

The claims of popularity that can be linked to his overwhelming electoral results are not supported either by the economic progress of his country—based on the extraction of hydrocarbons and raw materials and only stimulated now by the war industry—nor by the development of the war itself. despite the turning point in its favor that the fall of Avdiivka represented after the initial failure of its lightning offensive on Kiev, the poor control of the Black Sea or the attacks suffered in Russian territory during the election days.

His belligerent intention, however, remains intact.

Only Putin's closest allies can celebrate the endorsement it means for his presidency.

For the rest of the planet, these elections are a reaffirmation of the militaristic and threatening vocation of his regime.

With all opposition figures in exile, jail or cemetery, independent journalism banned, any expression of dissent persecuted and even the few testimonial candidates unfavorable to the invasion of Ukraine excluded, Putin's legitimacy remains null.

The emphatic celebration of his electoral victory and the display of the results coinciding with the tenth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea constitute another demonstration of the tight control to which it has subjected its citizens and, at the same time, a disturbing challenge for the countries neighbors.