BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Russia, Putin And The Future: Political Factors For Investors And Policy Makers To Watch

Following
This article is more than 4 years old.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

This summer will mark 20 years since Vladimir Putin became Russian Prime Minister. Elected president less than a year later, he has been at the summit of Russian politics ever since. True, there was a four-year period from 2008 to 2012 when Dmitry Medvedev, himself now Prime Minister, held the presidency. That did not seem to diminish Mr Putin's influence, as his continuing high profile, and subsequent return as president in 2012, demonstrated.

The Russian constitution, however, limits presidents to two consecutive terms. That's why Mr Putin stepped down in 2008. Re-elected last year for a second term of his second period in office, Mr Putin is now due to leave the presidency in 2024.

By then, Mr Putin will have been Russia's most powerful politician for a quarter of a century. The end of any era of that length is likely to be a moment of change, and already the Russian president's allies and opponents are trying to guess what that might mean for them.

Hopes for a smooth succession

Mr Putin's supporters among Russia's political and business elite will be hoping for a smooth succession, perhaps with one chosen from among their number as the next president, and, benefiting from Mr Putin's approval, winning the 2024 election.

There are no guarantees, though. Mr Putin's opponents see any prospect of change as an opportunity for them, too. Whether they are really placed to take advantage of that opportunity is another matter.

Alexei Navalny, who came to prominence as an anti-corruption campaigner, has the highest profile of any of Mr Putin's political opponents, but even his supporters acknowledge the enormity of the task they fact. 

Facing a judicial system which means they risk being jailed for their activities (Mr Navalny himself has served time for organizing protests); an election system which they see as unfair (and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's election observers did conclude in 2018 that the election which saw Mr Putin returned to office, ' limited the space for political engagement and resulted in a lack of genuine competition'); and lack of access to the mainstream media, their prospects are bleak.

Some observers have pointed to the fact that Mr Putin, who has previously enjoyed sky-high popularity ratings, now has lower approval ratings than earlier in his presidency.  That needs to be put in context. A decline in Mr Putin's ratings does not necessarily mean that any serious challenger is emerging. 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

There is no doubt that Mr Putin has maintained his domestic popularity by giving Russia a higher profile on the world stage. The annexation of Crimea brought confrontation with the West, but was widely supported by voters.

Could the system survive a change of leader? 

The big question is whether a political system built around one leader, Mr Putin, could survive that leader's departure from the political stage. The right successor might mean that were possible.

Mr Putin has time to decide on what his future role might be. Some analysts have suggested that the recent announcement by Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan since the end of the Soviet era, that he was stepping down might offer a model for Mr Putin to follow.  There has for months been speculation that Mr Putin might become leader of a united state of Russia and Belarus, thereby technically allowing him to remain in power.

Mr Putin himself has probably not decided on a course of action. He has time. But the constitutional term limits, and Mr Putin's age -- he will be over 70 in 2024 -- mean that some kind of change is very likely coming.

Through all the changes in relations between Russia and the West that have occurred in the last two decades, policy makers and investors have been able to rely on one thing: Mr Putin was in charge. 

When I was a correspondent in Moscow in the last decade, a well-placed source offered the view, as Mr Putin's second presidential term came to an end in 2008, that the Putin era was only just beginning. That can no longer be true.

 

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website or some of my other work here