Putin; President again?

After keeping Vladimir Putin’s presidential seat warm for the last four years, current Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is set to give it up after a resounding (-ly fraudulent) victory in Russian exit polls held recently. Russian law prevents a President from serving more than two consecutive terms in office, which explains the need for the game of political musical chairs.

Mr. Putin claims that he has won an “open and honest battle”. His campaign chief, Stanislav Govorukhin, described the poll as "the cleanest in Russian history".

Since Russian presidents are elected for six-year terms, theoretically, Mr. Putin could maintain his grip on power till 2018! Since Russian law only has a limit on consecutive terms, Mr. Putin could run again then and should he win, keep the presidency till 2024, after which he will have to (nominally) step down as President, though no one doubts that he will continue to play puppet-master, much as he has done for the last four years.

Now, what does this mean for Russian politics? Clearly it indicates that Mr. Putin will maintain his stranglehold on power for quite some time. Whilst the election results bought out the usual (but indeed disturbing) corruption allegations by opposition parties and anti-government blogger Alexey Navalny, an certain source of complaint highlighted an interesting segment of the population that has grown disenchanted with Mr. Putin; the Communist Party.  Mr. Zyuganov - the leader of the Communist Party who has previously been relatively loyal to Mr. Putin - described the elections as "unfair and unworthy". He went further to say that Mr. Putin "would not be able to rule like he used to".

This sea change in Communist Party policy indicates a troubling lack of support for Putin amongst not only the embittered middle class and intellectuals, but also the proletariat of the Communist Party. The Party has been very content to play the benign opposition, always toeing Mr. Putin’s line, but clearly these biased elections have struck a nerve in Mr. Zyuganov and his ilk.

Opposition parties have planned mass protests in the weeks ahead, and a few candidates have plans to complain to the Electoral Commission, but let’s see how this turns out. If Mr. Putin is able to ensure a smooth transition of power, it’s far more likely that he will be able to serve the rest of his term easily.

In my next couple of posts, I’ll be looking at how foreign policy issues will affect the U.S. Presidential Election, what China’s new growth target means for the world and most importantly, keeping you updated on what’s happening in this world- and why.