With little to no effort, the Kremlin helped the former president Vladimir Putin become the future president of the country, as it has been doing since the last four terms. Now the question of what to do after being elected arises? How will the fifth term go, and how will it be different from the past four terms? But one thing is for sure: the updated version of Putin will not be much different from the previous one.
There is a high chance of things staying the same as they were last time, and Putin will continue with his previous policies and strategies. Russia will always have conflict with other countries, and there will be a normal crackdown inside the country. Most probably, the war in Ukraine will also not stop, and Russia will continue to fight the West in the region.
While commenting on the elections in Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said, “This is not what free and fair elections look like.” Although Western leaders are not satisfied by the genuineness of these presidential votes, the success of the elections will help Putin and the Kremlin prove that they have the support of the entire country and that Putin can play his role in the Ukraine war more bravely.
The 87% vote he got in the elections gave a message to the elite class of Russian politics: “Take note, there’s still only one man in charge here, in control, and that’s not going to change any time soon.” The victory means a lot to Vladimir Putin, as it comes after the Wagner mercenary group-led mutiny, organized by Yevgeny Prigozhin, against him that challenged the president’s authority.
The Russian president won against this mutiny, as two months later, after the mutiny took place, Prigozhin died in a plane crash. The victory in the fifth presidential election served as a confidence booster for Putin, who is feeling more powerful than ever.
During the news conference held by Vladimir Putin to announce his victory, his confidence appeared to be outside the world. This was the confidence of a leader who has been ruling the country for almost 25 years—that is one quarter of a century—who has completed his four terms as the President of the country successfully and is now going to rule for another term after being elected again by 87% of the vote of the population. This is the longest time a leader in the history of Russia has ever ruled after Catherine the Great.
In his conference, he confidently spoke about the progress of Russia in the Ukraine war and declared the initiative of this conflict to be “fully” in favour of Russia. He also claimed the democracy of his country to be better than that of the West and that Russia, after these elections, would be much stronger than it is now.
As predicted by the critics, political overconfidence in a leader, along with zero accountability, can prove fatal.
