Chapter Ten - The Long Presidency

CHAPTER TEN

The Long Presidency

BY 2004, PUTIN had won re-election in a landslide. His approval ratings were sky-high. The economy had stabilized, mostly thanks to rising oil prices. Salaries were getting paid again. Crime was down. The state was back in charge.

People called it a comeback.
Putin saw it as a beginning.

The Russian constitution said a president could only serve two consecutive terms. That didn’t bother him. He didn’t need to break the rules, he just had to bend them.

In 2008, with his second term ending, he stepped aside. But not really.

He backed Dmitry Medvedev for president, a mild, loyal technocrat. Medvedev won easily. And right after taking office, he made Putin prime minister. Everyone understood the deal. Medvedev sat in the big chair. Putin still ran the country.

For four years, that’s how it stayed. On paper, Putin was #2. In practice, nothing moved without him. Medvedev didn’t challenge anything. He didn’t drift off-script. The arrangement was clean.

Then in 2012, Putin came back formally, officially, and legally.

By the time Putin returned, the constitution had been amended to extend presidential terms from four years to six. He ran again and won. No surprise. Protests broke out, the biggest Russia had seen in a decade, but they were crushed or faded. Most people just accepted it.

From that point on, the system stopped pretending.

The elections kept happening, but they weren’t really contests. Opposition candidates were blocked, smeared, or simply not allowed on the ballot. The courts didn’t challenge anything. Parliament rubber-stamped what the Kremlin wanted. TV stayed quiet. The military stayed loyal.

Putin wasn’t just president. He was a permanent fixture. Not treated like a politician, but like an institution, the only one that still functioned.

He cultivated an image of a man above time.
Stronger than the West.
Smarter than his enemies.
Too vital to replace.

And if the law ever got in the way again, he’d just change the law.