a popular consultation to revive Vladimir Putin

With his constitutional reform, subject to a popular vote that began Thursday to peak on July 1, Vladimir Putin hopes restore an image tarnished by the health crisis. Originally scheduled for April 22, the election was postponed due to the health crisis. 110 million voters are called to vote for six days, consultation over an extended period to avoid excessive crowds at polling stations. The reform of the Russian president is a clever mix of political retouching, social guarantees, religious references, to properly accompany the essentials: create the conditions for his stay in power, potentially until 2036. He who has run his country since 1999, twice Prime Minister and twice President-elect (2000-2008 and since 2012).

Covid-19 disrupted Kremlin plans

Legally, this reform already adopted by the Russian parliament should not be subject to consultation. But the Russian president wanted it, given the importance of the subject. Indeed, constitutional amendments cast a wide net and above all should not be minimized because they say a lot about Russian society as it wants to consolidate Vladimir Putin. According to the principle of voting which started on Thursday, everything is take it or leave it. There is no half measure. In this reform are therefore found the reference to god and marriage only between a man and a woman to flatter the ultra-conservative fiber, indexation of retirement pensions for the fringe of its oldest electorate, passing by the sanctuarization of the territory to reassure the nationalists, to whom the Russian president promises never to return either Crimea to Ukraine or the Kuril Islands to Japan.

It is as if Vladimir Putin did not want to forget anyone. A bit as if the Russian President, by accelerating the calendar suddenly in the spring, feared the effects of the health crisis. Because despite the precautions announced – no more than eight voters per hour and per polling station, the physical grouping for this poll arouses the apprehension of the voters. And perhaps above all because a number of inhabitants perceived the limits of the effectiveness of presidential power during two months of confinement. The pension reform two years ago, which led to major protests, had gradually reduced the popularity of the master of the Kremlin by 20 points. Social issues that are central in Russia and which, depending on the evolution of the situation, could cause the Putin system to falter, explains Clémentine Fauconnier, researcher at the European Center for Sociology and Political Science (CESSP) and professor at the university Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne in World cultures. “It is a country where there is little protection and where _the social question is very mobilizing_. The major mobilizations, in terms of the number of people mobilized and the social profile of the people mobilized, are generally on social issues. “

After a month of confinement at the end of April, a study by the independent Levada center indicated that 48% of Russians questioned said they were already dissatisfied with the way the authorities were handling the health crisis. Thousands of Muscovites had for example criticized the “StopCovid” application Russian Federation, after receiving unjustified fines.

To ensure a high voter turnout, the Russian authorities have apparently arranged for the country’s largest employers to put pressure on their employees to vote. As a result, “contests organized in polling stations with cars and apartments to win”. A game which requires the use of a QR code given in advance to voters and which therefore allows to know who went to vote or not.

“A tendency to monitor or control the population, visible long before the pandemic”, explains Françoise Daucé, director of the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central European Worlds (CERCEC), in the program Foreign Affairs late May

Last year, a law on the sovereignty of the Russian internet was adopted, which shows this desire to better control the digital space inside the country and to limit exchanges with the international web. This trend is accentuated with the health crisis since we have seen a massive use of new technologies to try to control and monitor the population. (…) A very important use of these new technologies which makes defenders of human rights and freedoms fear that these measures will continue even if the epidemic disappears. And therefore the risk that this surveillance remains, even after the epidemic.
Françoise Daucé, director of the Center for the Study of the Russian, Caucasian and Central European Worlds

A scenario that rules out successors

On paper, the position of Vladimir Putin, who has remained popular with a majority of Russians, could therefore have weakened by the time he wants to inscribe – black on white in the Constitution – his conception of Russia in the future. The text allows the president to stay in the Kremlin for two more terms, until 2036, the year of his 84th birthday. Under current law, he should have retired from the presidency in 2024. Vladimir Putin said not having decided if he would remain at the head of the country after this date but that giving him the opportunity was essential. Because in the near future imagined by the president, the contenders have no city rights. “It’s time for work, not succession “ said Vladimir Putin firmly at the start of the week. “Otherwise, I know that in two years instead of working normally at all levels of the state, all eyes will be on the search for potential successors”, he added.

The time is especially for the need for the Russian President reinitialize its power through these amendments which are unlikely to be rejected a priori. The coronavirus epidemic has wiped out the campaign against reform. None of the rallies planned for April have taken place, confinement requires. Website “Not” who collected the signatures of Russians opposed to the reforms was blocked by justice and had to be relaunched under another domain name. The opponent Alexei Navalny denounced a “violation of the Constitution, a coup” and considers that the sole purpose of this vote is to “reset the counter of Putin’s mandates to zero, give him the right to a life presidency”, reports AFP.

Between the boycott and the indifference of some for the ballot and the approval by default of others, how to put aside the idea – more and more widespread in the population, that resetting the counters to zero means above all that the maintenance of Vladimir Putin in power beyond 2024 is already almost in place.

Last May in World cultures, the journalist from World Benoît Vitkine believed that no one had planned this movement because Vladimir Putin had never ceased to say that he would never touch the Constitution and that he had no desire to stay. “He took everyone by surprise” concluded the journalist.

This opens up a possibility of staying until 2036 or of choosing the moment when Vladimir Putin will hand over: the right moment from the point of view of the political context and the chosen successor. This scenario is often seen in the regions for governors. Passing of witnesses from one governor to another takes place outside the electoral deadline, which takes everyone by surprise including the opposition and this allows the successor to be already acting governor and to be elected more easily.
Clémentine Fauconnier, researcher at the European Center for Sociology and Political Science and teacher at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne

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