The Legacy

OPENING SCENE

Moscow, July 1, 2020. An elaborate outdoor voting ceremony has been running for a week across Russia, nominally on a package of 206 constitutional amendments covering topics from rural internet access to pension indexing to the mention of God in the preamble. Voters can cast ballots at outdoor booths in parks, on folding tables in courtyards, at drive-through stations — a format the government describes as designed for pandemic safety and that independent monitors describe as designed to minimize scrutiny. Ballot boxes are transported by officials in cars rather than sealed in stationary containers. Multiple instances of ballot stuffing are photographed at outdoor stations. The official result: 77.9 percent in favor, on a reported turnout of 67.9 percent.

Buried within the 206 amendments, Article 81 contains a provision resetting the presidential term counter — meaning that Vladimir Putin's existing terms in office, under the new constitution, do not count toward the two-term limit that had been the nominally fixed ceiling since 1993. The reset allows Putin to serve two additional six-year terms after 2024, potentially remaining in office until 2036, when he would be 83 years old. The amendment was drafted by Valentina Tereshkova — the first woman in space, now a United Russia deputy — who proposed it from the floor of the Duma as if it were a spontaneous idea rather than the main political purpose of the entire exercise. Putin appeared to receive the suggestion with visible surprise, saying he would "think about it," before endorsing it. The performance was so obviously scripted that even state television commentators appeared uncomfortable.

This moment — the constitutional manipulation of 2020, carried out in full public view through a nominally participatory process — is an encapsulation of the system as it reached its mature form. Everything legally adequate, nothing institutionally genuine. The tools of democratic legitimacy deployed to make permanent the absence of democratic accountability.