Zarina Zabrisky explains how the Russian President’s reforms to the Constitution have turned the country into an ethnostate and his rule into a dictatorship
Vladimir Putin, who is currently in his fourth Russian presidential term – having been in power for more than 20 years – extended his tenure until 2036 through a ‘national referendum’ last week.
Critics called 1 July 2020 the saddest day in modern Russian history. Putin’s reforms to the Constitution, approved by the referendum, allows him to retain the presidency for another two terms – until he is 84 years old.
Russia is hardly a thriving democracy, but the new Constitution formalises the country’s status as a dictatorship reigned over by a tsar-like figure and puts an end to any semblance of democracy in the eastern powerhouse.
Timeline to Tyranny
- In January 2020, Vladimir Putin proposed constitutional changes that would allow him to stay in power past the terms designated by the existing Constitution.
- In March 2020, during a parliamentary session in the State Duma, the first woman astronaut, a former prominent member of a Communist party, and now the deputy of Putin’s party, United Russia, Valentina Tereshkova, proposed an amendment to the Constitution to “zero out” (reset) or eliminate presidential term limits.
- The referendum scheduled for 22 April – Vladimir Lenin’s birthday – was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia is one of the countries hit the hardest by the Coronavirus, currently in third place with 660,231 cases, after the US and Brazil. On 15 June, despite the surging numbers of cases, the quarantine was lifted.
- On 25 June, Russia’s national constitutional “referendum” started after a military parade in Moscow. A Federal Law, No. 62, “On basic guarantees of voting rights and the right to participate in a referendum of citizens of the Russian Federation” was not applied and voters could not demand observers or place complaints. Multiple manipulations were reported.
- On 1 July, with a turnout of 65%, 77.9% of eligible voters supported 200 amendments to the Russian Constitution. 21.3% voted against the reforms.
One Man Above the Law
The constitutional changes aim to make the Russian President the “national leader”, put him above the law and provide him with lifelong immunity. Putin’s term limit will “zero out” in 2024 – allowing him to serve two more six-year terms.
“Putin creates a system in which the President is the focal element of the country’s political life, with more extensive powers and ever-greater influence on the two houses of the Russian Parliament, to the detriment of the Prime Minister and their Cabinet,” observes Grzegorz Kuczyński, director of the Eurasia programme at the Warsaw Institute. “Likewise, the President will have power over the country’s justice system and exert full authority over the so-called siloviki, or high-ranked politicians in the top state institutions of Russia.”
Significantly, one of the amendments grants former presidents immunity from prosecution: “The President of the Russian Federation, who has ceased to perform his duties due to the expiration of his term in the office or ahead of schedule in the event of his resignation or the persistent inability to exercise his powers for health reasons, shall have immunity.”
Immunity is a critical issue for Putin.
“Russia is ruled by the criminal-and-secret services regime of the most macabre nature,” says Russian political analyst and journalist Artyom Kruglov. According to his research, Putin started his career under the mentorship of a mafia boss and continued on a lifelong chain of crimes. His martial arts trainer, a convicted rapist with a specialty in burglary and connections in the local government, helped Putin – a below-average student – to get into a prestigious university.
From 1975 to 1990, Putin worked for the KGB, the Soviet Union’s secret police, starting his career in the department countering “ideological diversions” and then switching to a department that recruited foreigners as informants and agents of influence, allegedly often through the use of prostitutes. Between 1984 and 1989, Putin served in Dresden, reportedly working for a department specialising in sowing terror across the West.
In 1991, Putin was back in St. Petersburg, working in the mayor’s office, where he became infamous for appropriating goods intended for barter exchange with Germany, leaving the city without food supplies. In 1999, then then President Boris Yeltsin declared Putin a successor. A sex tape and two prostitutes took down the Prosecutor General investigating corruption in Yeltsin’s Government.
Putin’s alleged criminal record, from drug cartels to hit murders, continues to this day and immunity from prosecution is a fundamental matter