There is little doubt that Vladimir Putin, who has been in power since the turn of the century, is set to be re-elected in national elections starting on March 15, securing a fifth term and third full decade as Russia’s supreme leader. With the death of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Oleksiy Navalny, Putin’s political career has practically reached the stage of president for life. But his re-election reveals an inconvenient fact for Russia’s future political stability: the president and his entourage have not made significant preparations for the post-Putin era, writes CNN.

It may seem like a non-urgent issue for someone who is now Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin: In 2020, Russian voters approved constitutional changes that would allow Putin to remain in power until 2036. And even before Putin announced his candidacy. , the Kremlin has made it clear that it does not see an alternative to its single leadership system on the horizon, News.ro notes.

“If we assume that the president is running for office, then it is obvious that there can be no real competition for the position of president at the current stage,” Kremlin spokesman Dmytro Peskov said, adding that Putin “enjoys the absolute support of the population.” “.

Putin is 71 years old, ten years younger than US President Joe Biden. He may have lived the average life expectancy of a Russian, but his recent public appearances seem to show a man of iron health, CNN notes.

Weak link

But while Putin appears to be in no rush to find a successor, some Kremlin watchers say Putin’s re-election highlights a problem: the system built over the past two decades under his leadership is fragile, gerontocratic and vulnerable to major shocks, primarily the illness or death of a person at the top .

“The various challenges may be closer than we think,” said Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Center for East European Studies in Stockholm. “Putin can theoretically rule for another 12 years. I don’t think that will happen, especially if Ukraine gets new victories that will have a resonance.” in Moscow,” the analyst adds.

Umland says that last year’s armed uprising by Wagner PMK mercenary Yevgeny Prigozhin was successfully put down, although it is the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule – and unsubstantiated rumors about Putin’s health that appear on anonymous Telegram channels and social media suggest that , that behind the Kremlin’s opaque facade, there may be succession concerns.

“It’s not so much about the content of the rumor as it is that the rumor can spread,” Umland says.

Politburo 2.0

Theoretically, Russia is a legal state. The Russian Federation has a constitutional system that provides for an orderly succession to the throne: if Putin dies or becomes incapacitated during his term, his prerogatives will be temporarily taken over by the head of government, a position currently held by Prime Minister Mykhailo Mishustin.

But in practice, analysts say Putin runs something akin to a judicial system in which the president is the chief arbiter of disputes between rival factions of the elite.

And although the Soviet system had a consensus-based Politburo, which established a relatively stable (albeit opaque) mechanism for the transfer of power, some observers compare Putin’s inner circle, which includes wealthy friends, representatives of the state security apparatus and loyal technocrats, to a kind of Politburo 2.0 that could guide the potential succession.

How to stay in power “democratically”?

Putin’s Russia also has another precedent for transferring power to a trusted successor, in addition to the constitutional decisions that have already extended his tenure. In 2008, Putin reached the end of his second term as president and stepped down to be replaced by Dmitry Medvedev.

But while Medvedev inherited the cemodancik (a nuclear suitcase with launch codes) and a seat on Russia’s equivalent of Air Force One, Putin remained the real power behind the throne and won a third term in 2012.

Medvedev signed a law that changed the presidential term to six years, and then Putin dropped the term limit calculation in a 2020 constitutional referendum.

It is not surprising that Putin’s intention to stay in power has become the subject of ridicule from the Russian opposition. When Putin announced his intention to run for a third term, a meme of the Russian president turning into a decrepit Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev went viral, an image that appeared at opposition protests.

Where does Putin get his inspiration from?

The Kremlin has undoubtedly studied how autocrats in neighboring countries stay in power. Belarusian leader Oleksandr Lukashenko survived by quashing mass protests in 2020 amid widespread allegations of fraud and now plans to run for re-election next year.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, who calls Putin his “soulmate,” has tightened control over the Chinese Communist Party and overseen the abolition of term limits.

And in Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev resigned after three decades in power, but retained the position of head of the country’s Security Council and the title of Leader of the Nation.

However, the case of Nazarbayev could be instructive for the Kremlin. After violent unrest in January 2022, Nazarbayev was removed from the Security Council by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and lost key policy-making powers. It is proven here that reliable successors can only be trusted for a limited period of time.

When does the post-Putin battle begin?

Some Russian political observers suggest that real competition to succeed Putin will not occur until the 2030s, when Putin reaches his sixth term. Russian political commentator Andreo Pertev has described some potential contenders as “princes” who are quietly building their own support bases in anticipation of Putin’s possible departure.

Even former president Medvedev, who lost second place in 2020 when he resigned after a cabinet reshuffle, may still have aspirations. Although some observers dismiss him as a serious political player, Medvedev has used the war in Ukraine to create a profile as a politician with a strident, radical and anti-Western voice, recently appearing in front of a map of territorially divided Ukraine. between its neighbors and proclaiming that “Ukraine is clearly Russia.”

Regardless of whether Medvedev still has a shot at Russia’s highest office, the invasion of Ukraine has changed the official tone in Russia’s elite circles to one of unrestrained belligerence. And Russia is now a postmodern autocracy that can brandish Putin’s still very high approval ratings (however skewed) and his imminent re-election (however undemocratic) as a sign of legitimacy and unquestioned public support for the war, CNN’s analysis concludes.

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