According to Adam Taylor, one of the reasons why Putin has “survived so well” is that his leadership style does not allow rivals.

Vladimir Putin led Russia for almost a quarter of a century. If he wins re-election to his fifth presidential term on Sunday, which is virtually uncontested, he will be eligible for another six years – during which his time in the Kremlin will be longer than Joseph Stalin’s. This is stated in an article by political expert Adam Taylor for The Washington Post.

One of the reasons Putin has “survived so well,” he said, is that his leadership style doesn’t allow for rivals.

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s strongest and most charismatic opposition figure in recent years, died in an Arctic penal colony last month after surviving poisoning in 2020. Other potential rivals have been killed, such as Boris Nemtsov, shot dead on a Moscow street in 2015. Not only Liberals face similar threats: Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, an outspoken mercenary leader and former Putin ally, died two months after a brief military uprising last year.

Taylor notes that even Putin’s nominal challengers in this weekend’s election “are, at best, state-sanctioned nonentities” – the only two anti-war candidates, Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, were disqualified from voting on technical grounds.

“Putin’s most famous follower is Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council. Medvedev served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, while Putin served as prime minister – a ‘tandem’ leadership style designed to help Putin avoid term limits.” , writes the author.

He emphasizes that Medvedev was once seen as a potential reformer “with a softer attitude than Putin.” He is now best known for his aggressive nationalism and derisive remarks about Ukraine and the West.

“The outlandish nature of some of the messages is often shocking, although some analysts say he is playing an elaborate role as the Kremlin’s ‘court clown’ who can be used to make Putin more moderate,” Taylor said.

Military leaders such as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu are well known, but their lack of popular support became apparent during Prigozhin’s “uprising,” he said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, meanwhile, was nominated by Putin’s United Russia party during his re-election campaign last year despite previously running as an independent candidate – a move seen by critics as aimed at curbing his political rise in the city. where the ruling party is less popular.

“Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, is considered very influential, but he remained largely behind the scenes until the invasion of Ukraine, when his insidious rhetoric made him a prominent voice. The governor of Russia’s Tula region, Alexei Dyumin, is also not well known in the West, and his background as Putin’s former personal guard being promoted to senior military positions has led to speculation that he could be a favorite candidate,” Taylor said.

He also recalled the words of Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov that Putin’s future successor may not change Russia much. Speaking about what the next president of the Russian Federation should be, the speaker said: “The same. Or different, but the same.”

Russian Presidential Elections 2024 – latest news

Advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Mikhail Podolyak, spoke about how the events in the Kursk and Belgorod regions will affect the elections in Russia. He emphasized that in the Russian Federation there is no competition policy and no elections, and, accordingly, it is impossible to influence something that does not exist.

At the same time, Podolyak calls it very good that the Russians took up arms “and they show that there is only one way to talk with the Putin elite – this is an armed uprising.”