Putin ’s New Term—From Brezhnev to Stalin

As was widely expected, on Sunday Vladimir Putin was once again reinstalled (reconfirmed, re-enthroned) in the Kremlin. The term “elected” cannot be used in this case since nothing that happened on March 18, 2018, or in the months leading to this date, qualifies for the internationally recognized basic standards of the term “election.” In full control of the Kremlin for more than 18 years, Putin has already been at the top of the Russian state longer than any other Russian or Soviet leader in the last century —including Leonid Brezhnev—and is now left to compete only with the three-decade reign of Joseph Stalin.The official numbers of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) gave Putin 76.7% of the vote with a turnout of 67.5%, making up almost 52% of Russia ’s electorate. According to the CEC, the official number of people who voted for Putin was 56.4 million. However, Sergei Shpilkin, the renowned expert in electoral statistics, has estimated that ballot stuffing this year amounted to at least 10 million. In each of the three previous cases of “pr esidential elections” (in 2004, 2008, 2012) Shpilkin and his colleagues calculated the number of added (falsified) votes at between 8.8 and 14.6 million. Whatever the actual level of Putin ’s public support, the official numbers provide Putin with a level of legitimacy that Russian presidents never had before. The real question that now arises is how he is going to use it.The general consensus is that Putin ’...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs