How does Putin do it?

About 100 million Americans and probably an equal or greater number of overseas viewers watched the first presidential debate last Monday between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But no matter how the debate turned out and who was seen as the bigger winner or loser, neither candidate could imagine achieving after the November 8 vote for president what Vladimir Putin accomplished in Russia’s election of the Duma last week. With a personal favourability rating of over 80 percent and 343 of 450 Duma seats, Putin exceeded the most stunning electoral victories of any
American president.

Of course, Russia is not America. Only 47 percent of the Russian electorate voted, lower than the American average. Reports of voter fraud numbered in the thousands. Nor has Putin reacted kindly to opposition in any form whether politicians, oligarchs or the media. Yet, despite these negatives, Putin has cemented power more or less through the ballot box and personal popularity to which I can attest from my last trip to Moscow.

From an American perspective, the only way this was possible was through the heavy-handed and occasionally brutal tactics of an autocrat. After all, the Russian economy is still fragile. The war in Syria is proving excessively costly and seemingly without end.

Economic sanctions remain in place. Russian aircrafts continue to harass NATO ships and patrol planes in international air space and waters. One Russian fighter closed to within 10 feet of a US surveillance aircraft, a dangerously provocatively maneuver. And NATO is beefing up its defences on its easternmost borders in response.

Of course, opinion polls and Duma votes could have been rigged, as one of the candidates for US president warned would be the only reason for his defeat. Putin has surely advanced the cult of the personality as Stalin did. But cult status was later used as one of the reasons to topple Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev. However, public support for Putin does appear strong and far, far stronger than that in America for either Mrs Clinton or Mr Trump.

The reasons are clear. First, universally, Russians want a leader who is seen as strong, clever if not smart and acting in the state’s best interests. Putin fills each of these criteria. Second, different states have different idiosyncratic motivations for evaluating leaders. Russians have a sense of insecurity baked into the national DNA over centuries dating back to invasions by the Tatars and Mongols. Russians believe that their country should be respected internationally. And Russians believe in the uniqueness of their culture. Putin understands this. Third, Russians have a long and tragic history of enduring great hardships whether under tsars, the Communist Party or invaders. The same endurance applies today with a flagging economy. The question is how long this capacity for suffering will last in age of instant, global communications in which Russians compare their standard of living with other countries.

Putin knows his constituents well. Perhaps his KGB training and education have enabled him to master both wholesale and national politics by exploiting that knowledge to influence, convince and even coerce his citizens to support his leadership. Some of the answers to Putin’s success and longevity may emerge at the end of this year. Two years ago, Putin promised that the economy would improve by early 2017. If Putin can have some of the EU sanctions lifted or if energy prices soar, then the Russian economy will indeed improve. The latter seems very remote. The EU will decide on the continuation of its sanctions. But if Putin is prepared to negotiate over Ukraine, there could be a softening.

Meanwhile, Putin is attempting to strengthen ties with China. Energy deals and a recent joint naval exercise in the Pacific between China and Russia could be harbingers of Putin engineering a reverse Nixon using China as a lever against the United States. Putin views the Shanghai Cooperative Organisation (SCO) as a geostrategic and conceivably economic counterweight against the EU and even NATO.

In many ways, Putin knows how to play a weak hand. Whatever his strengths, President Barack Obama has not been able to outplay, outthink or outmaneuver Putin. Neither has Clinton. Trump thinks he can. Should he be elected, Trump will get the surprise of his life. This is not New York real estate where gaming the system works. This is the big time. And, if polls count, Putin ain’t bad at
this game.

With general elections less than two years away in Pakistan, is there any lesson to be learned from observing these two very different political systems? Obviously, like Clinton and Trump, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and former president Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan People’s Party can only dream of achieving what Putin did. Rather like the American elections in which the next president in all likelihood will win by a very narrow margin in popular votes and irrespective of whomever controls both houses of Congress, divided government is inevitable.

Even if Republicans were to make a clean sweep of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, arcane Senate rules require an absolute super majority of 60 votes to pass virtually all legislation by preventing a filibuster (note: a filibuster is an attempt to block legislation by disallowing a vote). And if Democrats win the White House and both chambers in Congress, the super majority works against them too. Besides, because of the tensions within both parties and the breakdown of the seniority system and lack of voting discipline in Congress to follow party lines, members of the same party as the president are not likely to become rubber stamps.

The result will be another four years of American broken and failing government. If this seems bizarre to the readers of this newspaper, for the last eight years, Congress has failed to pass a spending bill for defence relying on Concurrent Resolutions which, because of the ludicrous rules attached to that legislation, make coherent and logical management of the Pentagon impossible. As this column goes to press, the defence bill, approved and passed by both Houses of Congress, is being held fortune to an amendment to make the Sage Grouse (a bird one suspects) an endangered species!

Of the two models, Putin and the US, readers will judge where Pakistan falls or even fails. The point is that democracies that abide by the ballot box also succumb to it. When or if the US gets its political house and politics in order is one of the most vital questions facing this country. Similarly, the same question is one that confronts Pakistan too.

 

The writer is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist. He serves as Senior Advisor for Supreme Allied Commander Europe, the Atlantic Council and Business Executives for National Security and chairs two private companies. His last book is A Handful of Bullets: How the Murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand Still Menaces the Peace. His next book due out next year is Anatomy of Failure: Why America Loses Wars It Starts