Putin by a landslide in another Potemkin election

Two things are certain concerning Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

First, he will be reelected as president in the rigged election scheduled to run from March 15 to 17, 2024, by a resounding – if fraudulent – margin.

Second, he is not immortal. He will die one day, and he is likely to die in office rather than retiring willingly. Though we don’t know when that day will come, the world might want to consider the power struggle that will commence the day after Putin departs.

Ever since he took over as president in 2000, Putin has been perfecting the machinery of electoral fraud to guarantee victory. Vote buying, ballot miscounting, distribution of pre-filled ballots, tampering with ballot boxes, voter monitoring and intimidation, and ballot stuffing are all methods that Putin’s agents employ to guarantee a favorable result.

He has also jailed political opponents, exiled others and denied yet others the ability to challenge him in fair elections. In the most extreme cases, he has had hands in the murders of opposition figures like Boris Nemtsov and, most recently, the prison death of Alexei Navalny. There will be no surprises in this election: Putin’s victory will reaffirm his iron grip on Russia’s politics.

As a scholar of Russian politics and foreign policy who has studied Putin’s regime for the past 25 years, I have watched him build a dictatorship in Russia that rivals the repressive Soviet Union in both its brutality and corruption.

But, ironically, Putin is a prisoner of the political system he has built around himself for the past 24 years. Like many dictators, he cannot walk away from power and enjoy a quiet retirement even if he wanted to. He is too attached to, and dependent on, the mind-boggling wealth and power