Face it: Dude’s 62, a classic Type A who ignores the advice of others, including (I assume) doctors, and he thinks he’s in better shape than he is (those photos show him as a bit flabby, and remind me a bit of the Out of Shape In Shape Guy from the 50’s. He’s a heart attack waiting to happen. Even if it doesn’t happen, he’s not immortal.
In Western-style democracies there are systems to keep things humming when a leader dies, but Russia never managed to become and stay one. Demogogueries tend to not have a Plan B in place, so what is Russia’s? Who’s in the bullpen, and does he have the chops for world leadership? Or is he just a Putin toady whose talent is sucking up?
“Russia” has no plans for the time after Putin. I suspect the Putin has no real plans for that period, being fairly young and probably expecting to live long enough to make such plans in the future. Currently, Putin is exerting all the power and promoting all the ideas. Aside from a few opponents, (who are routinely silenced through false accusations and kangaroo trials or murdered by persons unknown), no one in Russia appears to be addressing any issues that are not initiated by or promoted by Putin.
I’d almost forgotten about Medvedev since he doesn’t seem to actually do anything except be Putin’s lap dog. Lavrov seems competent, in a Dick Cheney way, but I prefer that he not become Czar, because of the similarity to Dick Cheney.
I’ll give Putin credit for this: he doesn’t appear to be grooming any of his relatives as a successor. (Of course, maybe that’s just because he doesn’t have a son.)
Mr. Putin is content to leave it to the glorious People to decide, and in the meantime encourages frank and vigorous open public debate on this matter.
My guess is that nobody has any “plans” for now. Putin is still vigorous enough and firmly enough in control that nobody is likely to challenge him.
If he were to get hit by the proverbial bus, there’d be a scramble to see who comes out on top, just as in the Soviet era. I’d expect the new top dog to be another highly nationalistic autocrat.
If no revolution breaks out or no one stages a coup during Putin’s presidency, he will personally promote Medvedev to become president again. Like Alessan said, if someone was strong enough to replace him, they will replace him. Therefore, I think that Medvedev is the most likely candidate who has practically proved his loyalty to Putin. If he does become president after Putin though, he is guaranteed to be removed from power by a disgruntled Lavrov or otherwise the head of SVR or any other military figure that will emerge from now until then. That, of course, if Putin is mortal, because let’s face it, he might not be.
I’ve never really much of a believer of the Cult of Putin, myself. He’s a former intelligence nerd who studied some judo and likes to pose with his shirt off. Nothing more.
Recognizing the Cult of Putin doesn’t mean you like the guy.
It just means accepting how successful the russian propaganda machine (plus silencing all dissidents) has been.
The man has taken a dump on the constitution, and any pretense of a separate legislative and judiciary, and trashed the russian economy even with all that oil.
Yet his approval ratings remain at levels american leaders could only dream of, and have stayed that way for his whole 15 year term (yeah, I know). And many of the russian people blame all their problems on outside agitators, and are happy to believe that the only news you can trust comes from the state broadcasters (even when such “news” is trivially debunked online).
When it comes to winning hearts and minds, it would seem Putin has entered a cheat code.
Eh, I don’t think its a huge mystery. Here’s his cheat code. He took over at the bottom of the economic slump caused by the end of the USSR and the late 90’s fuel glut, and presided over 15 years of more or less uninterrupted economic growth. This was largely due to energy prices rather than Putin, but in Russia as in the US, people generally give the guy in charge or blame for the economy, regardless of his actual responsibility for it.
Russia’s economy slumped significantly during the financial crisis and is contracting again now. The kremlin’s own forecast is that it will remain in recession until the end of next year. If this is “more or less uninterrupted growth” then the majority of countries can boast the same.
All true, but I still think there’s more to it than that. There are no shortage of countries that have the same or better economic growth rates of russia, and indeed better income equality, yet their leaders have nowhere near his approval ratings.
And the people seem to lap up the official line on things like the conflict in Ukraine, despite how shoddy some of the propaganda has been.
Early on when the russian paratroopers were caught in Ukraine, I felt the russian attempts to handwave it were so brazen…yet so many russians (and, for what it’s worth, so many people here in china) really believe all that.
If he died now of a heart attack or getting eaten by a tiger or something, it’s possible Zyuganov might make a play for the leadership, but Zyuganov is 70 years old himself.
I think it more likely that Medvedev would become the figurehead for Russian leadership whilst a furious power struggle ensued behind the scenes. Whether Medvedev then retired to his new Crimean villa or stayed on as lapdog to the new leader would depend on who won.
On that note: 1) the Communist Party is the largest opposition party, and 2) opinion polls from earlier this year suggests that Russians would prefer a centrally planned communist economy to market capitalism (55% to 25%) and would also prefer a Soviet-style political system to “western democracy” (35% to 10%). I’m not sure anyone can really break the lock that Putin and his allies have on the government (although I don’t think most of his allies have Putin’s charisma), but if anyone can do it, I think the Communists have a decent shot.
Russia only had one year of contraction due to the financial crisis, and not coincidently coincided with the largest protests against his rule (and the invasion of another satellite state). But over the fifteen year period of his rule, Russian GDP almost tripled. The majority of countries can’t boast the same.
Plus, it isn’t just growth, but growth after a long period of financial collapse that preceeded Putin. Russian’s view of Russia without Putin is naturally what came before, and that was a decade of precipitous decline.
The current slump might eventually hurt his popularity (and presumably that’s part of the reason he’s been beating the nationalist drum and gone back to invading his neighbours), but after fifteen years, I suspect he has enough good will built in that it will take a few years of decline before people turn against him (and he runs out of border disputes to pick).
