Putin Forever?

The first round of the presidential election in Russia is taking place from Friday to Sunday this weekend. It will be the country's eighth presidential election and more than 112 million voters will be called to the polls. While four candidates are in the running, there is almost no doubt among observers that Vladimir Putin will be re-elected for a fifth term in the first round. The only real unknown is the share of votes he will receive. During the last presidential election in 2018, this number stood at around 77 percent.

In power for around a quarter of a century - spanning four presidential terms and two terms as prime minister between 1999 and 2000 and between 2008 and 2012 - Putin has spent a total of almost 9,000 days at the helm of the country. If he is re-elected this weekend, the ensuing six-year term of approximately 2,190 days will likely make him Russia's longest serving leader since the start of the twentieth century. This record is currently held by Joseph Stalin, who led the country between 1924 and 1953 for a total of 10,636 days. Putin became Russia's second longest-serving leader overtaking Brezhnev in 2017 late into his third term as president.

During Dmitry Medvedev's presidency from 2008 to 2012, Russian law was amended to extend presidential terms from two terms of four years to two terms of six years. This change was also designed to reset terms served and therefore enabled Putin to win another two terms. A decade later, in 2021, Putin signed another law setting the limit at two presidential mandates per person in a lifetime, again paradoxically resetting terms already served and thereby exempting him for a second time.