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Mr Putin’s extension

“We’ll never recognise this result,” Navalny told supporters in a video.

Mr Putin’s extension

Russia President Vladimir Putin. (Photo by Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik / AFP)

President Vladimir Putin’s spectacular victory in the referendum on extending his rule till 2036 was generally expected. The agenda was choreographed and set to match his seemingly boundless ambition, indeed to put in place a monolithic regime for many more years to come. The outcome would mean that the 67-year-old President of Russia will steer the course of Russian history till the ripe age of 83.

The nation has voted overwhelmingly for constitutional changes that have reset the clock on the longtime Russian leader’s tenure to zero. However, the landslide booster shot by the nation’s electorate ~ close to three decades after the disintegration of the Soviet Union ~ has been greeted by his detractors with remarkable cynicism, with critics debunking the outcome as “falsified on an industrial scale”.

In particular, they mention such freebies as flats and oneoff payments for couples with children. Despite the claim by Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission, that the vote had been transparent and that officials had done everything to ensure its integrity, there is considerable disquiet on either side of the Atlantic over the result.

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Notably, the United States on Thursday expressed concern over the vote, pointing to reports of voter coercion. “We are troubled by reports of Russian government efforts to manipulate the result of the votes on constitutional amendments, including reports of voter coercion, pressure on opponents of the amendments and restrictions of independent observers of the vote,” is the immediate response of the State Department spokesperson, Morgan Ortagus.

The European Union has also called on Russia to investigate the reported irregularities in what it called this “illegal show”. Neither the United States nor Europe nor for that matter all of Russia have readily concurred with the result. Not that this will place Putin on a weak wicket; but there is little doubt that his credibility has been bruised by his ambition. The discordant note has been no less resonant within Russia.

The Opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, called the vote an illegitimate show designed to legalise Putin’s presidency for life. “We’ll never recognise this result,” Navalny told supporters in a video. The Opposition will not protest for now because of the coronavirus pandemic, but would do so on a large scale in the autumn if its candidates were barred from taking part in regional elections or their results were falsified.

“What Putin fears most is the street,” said Navalny. “He will not leave until we start to take to the streets in the hundreds of thousands and in the millions.” That threat is unlikely to have an impact, Putin is on course to become the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Josef Stalin ruled the Soviet Union.

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