HOW TO THINK ABOUT IT The perfect motive. Russia watchers are wondering whether the apparent poisoning of Skripal was deliberately engineered by the Kremlin to rally Russian voters around Putin. After all, the official narrative casting Russia as the besieged target of a Western conspiracy plays wonderfully with Putin’s base, while the attack also sends a stark message to operatives everywhere: Don’t cross the Kremlin. A one-horse race. It’s a race for second place, and the likely runner-up is Pavel Grudinin. Dubbed “the Communist Billionaire,” Grudinin is the Communist Party candidate despite having privatized a massive strawberry farm to make his fortune. Meanwhile, socialite Ksenia Sobchak, 36, wants Russia out of Crimea and once played Eva Braun in a World War II spoof film called Hitler Goes Kaput! Both opponents have struggled with allegations that they’re pawns of Putin. Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most high-profile critic, has been banned from the race altogether. Winning isn’t everything. When there’s no doubt about the outcome of an election, turnout can obviously suffer. Last November, only 24 percent of Russians said they’ll definitely vote and another 34 percent said it’s “likely.” Still, the Kremlin is targeting 70 percent turnout — and 70 percent of the vote — to give Putin a clear mandate. To bolster turnout, Putin supporters are running a “Best Selfie” competition and raffling off iPhones, with only those who vote eligible to win. Numbers don’t lie. Or do they? Putin’s popularity has hovered above 80 percent for four years, but some observers attribute that to the chilling effect of self-censorship among respondents, a lack of credible opposition candidates and the fact that many young Russians have never lived under another leader. Small protests from his middle-class, nonideological base, however, suggest that the center can’t hold forever. What comes next? Unless he feels like tweaking the constitution (again), this term will be Putin’s last, making the question of succession critical. And that, observers say, is where the real intrigue is: Unlike Russia’s uneventful elections, the struggle for power among various individuals and interest groups is genuine and could spill out into the open in coming years. So far, Putin has given few signals of who — or what — might replace him, though predictions range from shadowy oil czar Igor Sechin to some sort of state council. Read More: Russia Trump-Russia |