Kremlin Refuses To See ‘Overkill’ In Making Up 87% For Putin

The dictator likes the figures.

Vladimir Putin’s phantasmagoric election result, which brought the president who has ruled for a quarter of a century closer to Central Asian and African dictators, is not considered an “overkill” in the Kremlin. Sources close to the presidential administration and regional authorities told Meduza about this.

According to them, deputy head of the Administration, curator of internal policy, Sergei Kiriyenko, who has already begun calling governors and personally thanking them for their “success,” is pleased with the final figure.

Putin himself believes that he scored 87%, one of Meduza’s sources told: “No matter what anyone says —“overdid”, “overachieved”— they are not punished for winning. The senior manager likes it. He sees this as real support”.

Before the elections, a plan was sent to the regions: to get 80% for Putin with a turnout above 70%. For this purpose, it was planned to attract public sector employees and employees of state-owned companies. In the last weeks before the vote, the bar began to be raised, says Meduza’s source: wishes were received from the PA that “the plus to 80% [for Putin] be larger.”

Kiriyenko “wanted to show the president very high numbers — which he did,” states the publication’s interlocutor. According to another source, the Far East set the “high bar,” where presidential envoy Yuri Trutnev secured 85% for Putin. After that, all regions strived to show results no lower. Even in Moscow, the Central Election Commission reported 85% for Putin. Now Moscow is an exemplary loyal region. [Mayor Sergei] Sobyanin can sell this to the president as his achievement — he pacified the capital,” said a Meduza source close to the PA.

Already Russia's longest-serving ruler since Joseph Stalin, Putin's fifth term could make him the oldest leader in the country's thousand-year history. In 2030, he will be 78 years old — older than Leonid Brezhnev (died at 75) and Konstantin Chernenko (died at 73). By the end of his sixth term, Putin will be 84 years old, older than Fidel Castro, who ruled until he was 81.

But this is not the limit: Putin will remain in power as long as his health allows, sources close to the Kremlin told Reuters on the eve of the elections. According to one of them, Putin is ready to remain in power for life.

“Putin has no competitors — he is on a completely different level. The West made a very serious mistake because it helped unite a significant part of the Russian elite and the Russian population around Putin with its sanctions and desire to portray Russia as a villain,” the source explained.