This long dormant thread shows some life as a WaPo article suggests that former President Obama’s subtle strategy in response to the annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine may be bearing fruit:
VLADIMIR PUTIN boasts of popularity ratings that Western leaders, Donald Trump included, can only dream of — 85 percent and above since Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014. Yet Mr. Putin remains unwilling to test those numbers against real competition. On Monday, the state election commission banned his most popular opponent, Alexei Navalny, from running in the presidential election scheduled for March 18 — meaning that Mr. Putin will face no serious opposition to obtaining another six-year term.
So?
He nevertheless prefers to stage a Potemkin vote in which his only challengers will be two perennial candidates, one Communist and one ultra-nationalist, and Ksenia Sobchak, a 36-year-old celebrity who has called the election “a high-budget show.” Mr. Navalny has now called for a boycott, which means that the Kremlin’s reported goal of a 70 percent turnout may be impossible to reach, barring fraud. In one recent poll, only 58 percent said they would vote.
What could explain Mr. Putin’s seemingly self-defeating tactics? Some analysts argue that the authoritarian regime he has constructed requires not a credible democratic victory but a crushing show of strength. The message must be that there is no alternative. That is particularly true at a time when the regime is failing to deliver the rising living standards it once offered Russians in exchange for their passivity. After two years of recession brought on by falling oil prices and Western sanctions, the economy will grow this year by less than 2 percent.
A stagnant country with a high unemployment could be a kettle ready to explode – and through manipulation of the price of oil by oversupplies by Saudi Arabia and the United States under President Obama, the price of oil has been low relative to its usual prices for several years now.
So Putin is forced to invalidate a dangerous electoral opponent. How important is this in Russia? Beats me – but it’ll surely contribute to the doubts of those Russians who are on the fence.
