When requested final week what sort of chief ought to substitute President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, his longtime spokesman gave a fast and easy reply: “the identical.”
“Or completely different, however the identical,” the spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, informed a Russian tv community, including that he was assured that ought to Mr. Putin run, he would win the election “doubtless” and would stay “our president.”
Few doubt that Mr. Putin will search one other presidential time period in an election scheduled for March. He’s broadly anticipated to formally announce his candidacy subsequent month.
There may be little query concerning the final result, too; in Russia’s authoritarian political system, Mr. Putin is all the time reported to have received in a landslide. He has led Russia as both president or prime minister since 1999.
However the coming presidential election carries extra significance; it’s the first one since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — Mr. Putin’s most consequential choice since he first crossed the Kremlin’s partitions as his nation’s chief twenty years in the past.
And the election ties instantly into Mr. Putin’s battle technique for 2024; particularly, will he order a brand new mobilization of troopers, which may very well be unpopular domestically, after securing his fifth time period as Russian chief.
“Struggle and mobilization are more and more unpopular,” stated Andrei Pertsev, who analyzes Russian politics for Meduza, a Russian information web site based mostly in Riga, Latvia. “They make folks anxious.”
Critics query the aim of a presidential election in a rustic at battle the place most opposition leaders have been both pushed into exile or jailed, the Kremlin-controlled electoral equipment filters who can run or not, and hottest information retailers solely sing praises to the incumbent.
Grigorii Golosov, a professor of political science on the European College at St. Petersburg, Russia, stated Mr. Putin needed to ensure that nobody may forged doubt over his legitimacy on the helm of the Russian state, most of all varied groupings throughout the nation’s ruling class.
“Each the inhabitants at massive and the Russian ruling class are conscious that there hasn’t been any actual political rivalry in Russia for a few years,” he stated. “However there is no such thing as a massive distinction between actual legitimacy and its imitation.”
Mr. Golosov stated that even a semblance of electoral legitimacy would assist Mr. Putin climate a home disaster, ought to one come up, citing the failed mutiny by the warlord Yevgeny V. Prigozhin in June as one potential instance.
“Related conditions may come up sooner or later,” Mr. Golosov added.
This would be the first election since Russia revised the Structure that successfully allowed Mr. Putin to run for the fifth time by permitting him to say that his term-limit clock was reset.
A number of different candidates are anticipated to run, together with representatives of two political events — the Communist and the nationalist leaning Liberal Democratic — which have acted as handy sparring companions throughout Mr. Putin’s earlier campaigns. As occurred throughout the two previous elections, the Kremlin may additionally permit a liberal candidate to enter the race — although specialists stated this was nonetheless an open query as a result of any such candidate would most definitely marketing campaign in opposition to the battle in Ukraine.
As an illustration, Boris Nadezhdin, one of many few Russian politicians who’ve introduced their intention to run, referred to as the battle — or particular navy operation as he referred to it — Mr. Putin’s “deadly mistake” and declared that ending it might be his No. 1 precedence.
“Putin is dragging Russia into the previous,” Mr. Nadezhdin stated in an interview with Zhivoy Gvozd, a Russian information outlet on YouTube, this month. “The principle drawback is that Putin is destroying the important thing establishments of a contemporary state.”
With a view to be formally registered as a candidate, Mr. Nadezhdin would want to gather 100,000 signatures from throughout the nation. The Central Electoral Fee must vet them, a course of that analysts say permits the Kremlin to filter out undesirable contenders.
“I discover the chance of him getting registered virtually negligible,” stated Mr. Golosov, the political analyst.
On the other finish of the political spectrum, Igor Girkin introduced his intention to run and unite all pro-war forces below his banner. Mr. Girkin, additionally identified below his nom de guerre Strelkov, stoked Russian nationalism as a warlord and navy blogger in Ukraine but additionally often criticized the Kremlin.
Mr. Girkin is in jail on extremism costs for criticizing the way in which Mr. Putin executed the battle, saying that the Russian chief was “too sort” to his adversaries.
Each Mr. Nadezhdin and Mr. Girkin are unlikely to be allowed to hitch the race.
The election, nonetheless, can probably current issues for the Kremlin, specialists stated. Although the result is a foregone conclusion, elections in Russia have often represented a major inflection level when the political system has been extra susceptible than regular. On the finish of 2011, as an example, tens of hundreds of Russians crammed central squares of Moscow and different massive Russian cities protesting parliamentary elections they thought of rigged.
This yr, the battle in Ukraine provides a brand new component of uncertainty, analysts stated. Whereas Russia has managed to carry off the Ukrainian counteroffensive and is mounting assaults of its personal, it’s sacrificing tens of hundreds of troopers whereas failing to realize any significant breakthrough or coerce Kyiv to barter.
And so long as the battle drags on, Russians stay anxious that it may require one other spherical of mobilization of males to struggle it. The Kremlin ordered a draft within the fall of 2022 however has not introduced one other one, involved about home backlash. Ready till after the election would take away at the least some political danger.
A survey by Russian Discipline, a nonpartisan Moscow-based analysis firm, discovered that for the primary time because the begin of the battle, extra Russians stated they supported negotiations than a continuation of armed fight. Nearly two-thirds of individuals reached by phone stated they might assist a peace deal in Ukraine if it had been signed tomorrow.
The ballot was performed amongst 1,611 respondents, with 6,403 refusing to take part, highlighting the problem of polling in Russia.
The impartial pollster Levada reported related shifts in its ballot launched on the finish of October, with 55 p.c of respondents saying that they would like peace talks versus a continuation of the battle.
The Kremlin is conscious of this shift in temper, stated Mr. Pertsev of Meduza. Whereas Mr. Putin stays deeply within the navy state of affairs, the Kremlin has been visibly shifting his agenda away from the battle to extra mundane points, such because the nation’s infrastructure growth, Mr. Pertsev stated.
On Monday, as an example, he presided over a ceremony for the supply of 570 buses to 12 Russian areas.
“The battle solely makes issues worse for the presidential marketing campaign,” Mr. Pertsev stated in an interview. “It reminds folks about difficulties.”
Forward of the presidential marketing campaign, the Russian state organized an unlimited Rossiya exhibition in Moscow. There, folks stroll by way of a 500-feet-long video tunnel that showcases the nation’s varied achievements below Mr. Putin’s rule, resembling the development of house buildings and highways. There is no such thing as a point out of the battle.
Mr. Pertsev contends that the exhibition is designed to create a “theatrical backdrop” for Mr. Putin’s marketing campaign. The Kremlin has additionally organized a contest during which households can win certificates for brand spanking new flats or journeys throughout Russia. The time-frame of the competition coincides with the election interval.
“Russia’s energy vertical is utilizing election to display as soon as once more that all the things goes properly and that the West hasn’t damaged Russia,” stated Mr. Pertsev. One other main issue for holding the election, he stated, is that Mr. Putin “likes it when his work and folks’s love for him is demonstrated publicly.”
“The older he will get, the extra he likes it,” he stated.
