Director’s Note

Dear Ambassador Klimovskiy,

Thank you for your insights which offer a practical framework, if I may, to incorporate international relations and comparative politics.

As Voltaire once put it, I might disapprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. Since its inception, our paper has chosen to support such democractic principles as freedom of information and freedom of opinion.

 One of the strengths of representative democracy is the ability for the proletariat to speak the truth to and hold political leaders accountable. When a political leader finds ways to stay in power or close to power for two decades in a country that only allows two consecutive presidential mandates, representative democracy is undermined – at least from my humble journalistic perspective.

You have pointed out the realities of the 2018 presidential elections, in which Vladimir Putin gained 76.69 % of the votes. At first glance, regardless of criticism pertaining to the electioneering process, it looks like a landslide. However, the percentage of registered voters opting to maintain Putin in power is not impressive, only around…51%.

You’ll agree with me that this figure sheds a different light on the divisive nature of domestic politics in Russia. It means that nearly half of Russia has not voted for Putin as president. The lack of a reliable alternative to Putin’s supremacy over domestic politics has not led voters to flock to his side. More than 30% of registered voters did not head to the polls in 2018.

The ambassador also recalls previous instances of leaders being elected for more than two mandates. In the United States, the tradition that George Washington started was to serve a maximum of two presidential mandates. However, Franklin D. Roosevelt transcended those limits to be elected to four consecutive mandates. Fearing the possibility of a president with unlimited time in power after the Roosevelt episode, the US Constitution was officially amended (the process started in 1947 and came into force in 1951) to prevent power-hungry leaders (which FDR was not!) from staying at the head of their country.

In Germany, there are limits on the Bundestag but not on the position of chancellor. The chancellor needs to retain the confidence of the Bundestag to stay in power, which Angela Merkel has done without constitutional interference.In the short-term, it is also worth pointing out that Merkel is not the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) anymore and will not stand for re-election as chancellor in 2021.

While there might be other reasons (highlighted by you) justifying the reforms in legislative power in Russia, it would be a journalistic faux-pas to imagine that it has nothing to do with Putin’s desire to remain in power as long as he possibly can.

Finally, let me add that contradictions are important in the sense that we can learn from one another, n’est-ce pas Mr Ambassador ?