The 2018 Russian presidential election is over, having brought no surprise. An unbeatable contender, Vladimir Putin, was re-elected by a landslide majority of 77 percent having received 56 million of the votes. This victory is unprecedented even for Putin. Never before have Russians granted so much support for his rule and policies. The people of Moscow and St. Petersburg, the traditional supporters opposition candidates up until now, this time cast their votes for Putin. Russian citizens living in 144 countries the world took part in the election as never before. National consolidation is the keyword to explain this. With Russia under economic sanctions, international tension around it running increasingly high and relations with the U.S. and now Great Britain increasingly deteriorating, the people of Russia need a leader to steer them through the hard times.
Putin came to power in 2000 amid an atmosphere of wanting a national leader to bring back order and personal safety, decent standards of living and to regain lost prestige in the international arena. Russians easily traded the democratic gains of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin made, and entrust this highly demanding job to a former KGB officer with a reputation as a tough guy and a hardliner.
The democratic tradition is poor in Russia. Its civil society is underdeveloped, sly and fractured. Today, the democratic gains of the 1990s are largely associated with Gorbachev's breakdown of the Soviet Union and Yeltsin's corruption and embezzlement, and a dramatic drop in Russia's authority in the international affairs. The once propagated ideas of glasnost and perestroika are well forgotten and their heritage has been sent into oblivion as if they never happened.
Putin the national leader
In his 15 years in power, Putin has managed to bring back to the people what they lost in the 1990s and wanted back the most in 2000, i.e., strong leadership and guidance in world affairs that has generated overall nationwide support for him.
As a president, Putin fed the poor and let the common people enjoy the basic benefits of life in a civilized society. He put the oligarchs on the ropes, made them pay taxes and sent thieves to prison. He made the streets of Russian cities and towns safe and free from criminal gangs and mobsters. He brought back to life the Russian military, made its officers respected members of society again and accomplished an unprecedented modernization of the armed forces. He made world leaders at large treat Russia with respect and dignity, built a stronger position in the regions of Russia's traditional presence and initiated unexpected alliances with former foes and rivals at times.
The 2018 presidential elections
Putin's Russia is very different today than the country he came to rescue about a decade-and-a-half ago. The priorities on the presidential agenda are different, as well. "The economy acquiring an innovative character" is a key task to accomplish domestically, Putin said upon re-election. This meets the expectations of the Russian people who cast their votes for him and now expect him to make Russia more economically self-sufficient and independent as a country with high potential and huge resources. But it is easier to say than do, since a major change is required to accomplish such a demanding task. The change is in the air, as Putin has said, "everything flows, everything changes."
In this past election, Putin found support from more than three-quarters of the voters, the highest ever he has seen. A combination of factors contributed to it. Certain political analysts believe his election campaign was launched not in Russia really, but in Syria in September 2015. Right they are, as patriotism is another pillar of Putin's enormous popularity and a key for the country's consolidation, and Russia's fight against terrorism in Syria is a contribution to it.
On the evening of March 18, when the election's tentative results were announced, 35,000 people from different walks of life came to a public rally in downtown Moscow in support of Putin. Skeptics sneered in disbelief and voiced their grounded concerns about how genuine the support is in light of the media's mega public relations campaign. Putin's video chronicles and prime-time interviews take over Russian TV channels.
Russian opposition
The immaturity of Russia's liberal opposition lost in squabbles and mutual accusations is a fact of life. Its accumulated results account for 22 million votes only in comparison to the 56 million received by Putin as an independent presidential candidate. Besides failing to produce a single leader during the past 15 years, the opposition has generally lost its drive and appeal to the electorate, which the March 18 elections further demonstrate.
The election results show a dramatic decrease in support for the main opposition parties – the Communist Party led by Gennady Zyuganov and Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Still second after Putin, the Communist Party candidate got just 12 percent of votes, down from the 17 percent received in 2012. Coming third, Zhirinovsky's LDPR managed a bit more than 5.5 percent of the vote, while the Yabloko party led by Grigory Yavlinsky failed to pass the 1 percent threshold. All in all, it makes the falling apart of Russia's liberal system apparent with this dramatic loss of trust and support from its traditional electorate.
New trends
Still, the 2018 election campaign brought new faces and front-runners. Ksenia Sobchak, deserves attention as the only woman to run. She is a charismatic TV journalist and graduate of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), a cradle of Russian diplomacy whose former students include Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. An open supporter of liberal-democratic values, Ksenia is the daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the first mayor of St. Petersburg after the collapse of the Soviet Union. H was a man of courage and intellect who made Putin, a freshly retired KGB officer, his deputy in the 1990s. As such, she indisputably enjoys a place among the Russian elite.
More important is her presidential campaign, which produced eloquent rhetoric, certain concrete deeds and achievements for the benefit of common citizens. Sobchak's modest 1.68 percent still put her third after the heavyweights of Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky and far ahead of such old-timers as Grigory Yavlinsky and Sergey Baburin, who failed to pass the 1 percent threshold. "It's minority that speeds up the progress," Sobchak said, not at all discouraged by the results. She is hardly discouraged by the contradictory reactions of the Russian public at large to her flamboyant personality and at times outspoken remarks about the goings on in Russia. With her in the loop, Russia's liberal-democratic opposition may get a much-desired boost. Time will tell.
*Freelance journalist living in Istanbul