Putin’s Trump moment

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have the same problem, they have squandered their credibility. They both appear clever because by chance they have spent a lifetime getting away with things that have brought down others long ago, and they lied about them. They get away with it because the audacity catches everyone off guard.

However, the lesson of Trump’s first months in office is that, once most people catch on, it is harder to pull off the next audacious stunt. Trump’s agenda from health care to that wall is stalled. Putin has had a longer run in public office but is having trouble with his agenda, too — from lifting oil prices to lifting sanctions.

{mosads}Now that everyone has caught on to Russia’s election interference and propaganda, Putin’s audacious stunts, despite much hand wringing by his victims, are harder to pull off without a substantial reaction in response. Local elections held in Russia on Sept. 10 fit the pattern and spell possible trouble for next year’s presidential election that Putin is currently expected to win handedly.

On Sept. 10, Putin’s United Russia party swept local elections in the 16 Regions where elections took place, including in Sevastopol in Crimea seized by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. However, opposition candidates in Moscow made surprising gains.

As reported by RFE/RL, United Russia took about 77 percent of the contested seats in Moscow while opposition parties took the remaining 23 percent, putting them on track to “ win a majority of seats in 14 of the more than 100 administrative districts of the capital.” A modest but significant gain for the political opposition in a key region.

Some commentators have made much of this success, arguing that it shows Putin’s declining popularity among the important Moscow electorate. Others conclude it is a ploy by Putin to give the appearance of plurality and vent some of the pressure from alternatives to United Russia before next year’s presidential election.

In one version, Putin will announce in November that he is running for president, but as an independent, effectively throwing United Russia under the bus to deflect public unhappiness from Putin over poor economic conditions and the unpopular and expensive interventions in eastern Ukraine and Syria that are draining lives and the national budget.

Given that Putin is at the pinnacle of his domestic power, it is difficult to believe that election results in Moscow, where everything is controlled from the top, are anything but a ploy in Putin’s presidential reelection strategy. Moreover, poor opposition results elsewhere and numerous election fraud complaints indicate that the modest opposition win in Moscow had at the least Putin’s tacit approval. Since Putin does not intend to give up power, the opposition victories seem to be a tactical concession on the part of Putin.

There is a risk, however, that this very modest ploy will backfire. It is not yet an insurgency, but the appearance of political plurality may escalate into a demand for actual plurality. Such an escalation — like Trump’s surprise election — might effervesce from deep dissatisfaction among ordinary Russians about their poor economic prospects.

Ordinary Russians have already expressed unhappiness with political and economic corruption through the unexpected strength of protests earlier this year. If dissent grows, Putin’s ability to rule through a diminished United Russia party would be undercut. This why there are rumors of him running as an independent.  He would have to build a new coalition, a seemingly improbable event if he can’t hold United Russia together, or he may fall back on suppressing dissent through his control of the justice system and the newly established National Guard that reports directly to him and is trained for such purposes.

In which case, the likely outcome is the social upheaval that Putin wants to avoid (not to mention that Putin might again foment a foreign conflict to rivet the Russian people’s attention and loyalty). A worrisome feature of this election for Putin is that turnout was as low as 14-15 percent in some districts, which magnified the opposition vote, suggesting that Putin may be stung by voter apathy next year. It seems unlikely that a populist insurgent like Trump could disrupt a vote for Putin, but a disaffected public also means that when the insurgency comes it will be unexpected, widespread and messy.

That Putin believes there is a risk of an unpleasant surprise is also suggested by the wave of bomb threats across Russia over the last few days. It may be a prank or a genuine terrorist threat, but it also has the appearance of old tradecraft out of Russia’s security service (FSB) playbook. It’s hard to tell.

It’s an old trick to instill in the Russian people a sense of vulnerability to dark (usually foreign) forces, and their reaction is to look to the central government in Moscow to protect them. Alarmist statements from Russian officials that the bombing threat is unprecedented and could have come from Ukraine fit into this narrative, as does the response of Russian authorities, which has been unremarkable when they are more noted for overreacting. The perception of a Russia under siege from terrorism was, after all, what propelled Putin to power in 2000.

Putin has reason to worry, because, unlike Trump, he is not the disruptor this time. Putin’s game is defensive. He has to fend off challenges to his power. However, his tricks have grown stale and repetition has increased the Russian public’s awareness that the government is failing them. Few believe that elections are fair, the economy is tepid at best, and no one believes that there are no Russian soldiers in eastern Ukraine. Putin and Trump have credibility problems because mistrust of them has only grown and for that reason Putin, like Trump, may win elections but lose the broad appeal necessary to rule.

Dirk Mattheisen is a former assistant secretary of the World Bank Group. He writes on political economy with a focus on Russian and Ukrainian relations and global institutional governance. Follow him on Twitter @DirkMattheisen.