The Russian presidential election was held from March 15 to March 18, and the results were not at all surprising. Putin won easily as he only faced easy challengers, as well as harshly suppressing and threatening those looking to vote in opposition.
Putin won 87.3% of the vote on a record breaking turnout of 77.5%, the Central Election Commission (CEC) reported Monday after all votes were counted.
Putin’s only real threat to his presidency was Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party, who barely scraped out 4% of the vote.
Putin has also promised with his re-election that he will push his military forces deeper into Ukraine in hopes of big victories. Almost all criticism of the war in Ukraine gets stifled, and independent media is virtually non-existent. Most other critics have either been killed or exiled.
Conveniently, Putin’s biggest political foe, Alex Navalny, mysteriously died in a Russian prison in the Arctic last month. Monitoring of voting was also extremely limited, meaning that tampering or adding votes was extremely likely.
“As for Mr. Navalny – yes, he passed away,” Putin said. “It is always a sad event. And there were other cases when people in prisons passed away. Didn’t this happen in the United States? It did, and not once But, unfortunately, what happened happened. There was only one condition that we will exchange him for him not to come back. Let him sit there. Well, such things happen. There’s nothing you can do about it, that’s life.”
Putin will remain in power until 2030 when the dictator will be 77, however, a constitution was passed in 2008 which could allow Putin to stay in power until 2036. This has made Putin the longest-serving president since the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin.
Though Putin will be in power for the foreseeable future, eventually he won’t. Eastern Europe will see a time without worrying about who’s knocking on their doors to the east, and the people of Russia will gain their voice. Ukraine will rebuild from ruin or relish in victory. But history tends to repeat itself, more often than not.
