RUSSIA
The Return of the Tsar
Russia’s Vladimir Putin has a coy side.
Even though everyone knew he would run for reelection next year, a few months ago when asked who his rival might be in the March 2018 ballot, he demurred.
“Not only have I not decided who I will run against, I have not decided whether I will run at all,” he said at an energy conference in Moscow, adding that he would decide this month.
He did. He’s running. And of course, no one thinks he could lose.
A former KGB agent from St. Petersburgh, Putin has been running Russia since 1999, exercising autocratic power from the Kremlin in an unmistakably Russian fashion. Recently, for example, he’s cracked down on foreign news outlets, labeling them as spies – a line straight out of the tsarist secret police and commissars’ playbooks.
His “legendary cloak and dagger mentality” applies to all walks of life, including his daughters, explained VICE. Western news outlets consider it a scoop to snap a picture of them.
Accordingly, Putin’s government opted last month not to celebrate the centennial of the Russian Revolution, the beginning of 70 years of communist rule.
“The last thing an authoritarian regime feeling its foundations wobble wants to do is celebrate revolution,” Russia specialist Mark Galeotti told USA Today.
Putin certainly has few compunctions about cracking down on those who oppose him.
In Tsarist style, Russian officials under Putin jailed would-be presidential contender Alexei Navalny for organizing public protests, then declared his candidacy void due to his time in jail.
Still, Carnegie Foundation for Peace scholar Julia Gurganus arguesthat Putin needs to step up his political campaign if he wants to achieve the absolute supremacy he desires.
Putin has been making moves toward those ends. He’s spending$8.6 billion on encouraging Russians to bear more children through mortgage help and other subsidies.
It’s a smart move, especially with the Russian economy growingagain despite business leaders’ fear of US sanctions slated to take effect soon.
“People are on edge,” a businessperson told Reuters. In response, Putin accused the US of seeking to foment discord.
His primary rivals next year are likely to be two well-known women, Ksenia Sobchak and Yekaterina Gordon.
Sobchak is a television personality related to Putin’s old political mentor in St. Petersburgh. Gordon is a member of the opposition running on a pro-women’s platform. Alluding to shoddy public health, unemployment and other problems in the country, she had a perspective on bearing Russian children.
“We are a country of single mothers whom no one cares for,” said Gordon, according to the New York Times.
The tsar probably didn’t like that too much.
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