Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/12/06/putin-says-hell-run-again-fo.html
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I’ve heard this one before.
There will be some protests. Those people will be arrested. Some journalists might disappear or be found with drugs or illegal porn, and go to jail.
And of course Putin wins in a landslide, with a huuuuuuuge voter turnout, approaching and sometimes exceeding 100% of registered voters in some districts.
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I am really curious what the final days of Putin will look like. He’s only 65, so he could remain in power another 20 years. He’s likely got several hundred billion dollars socked away all over the world, making him the richest person in the history of the world, and there’s no reason that number couldn’t double or triple. So what do Russia and the world look like with an 85 year old Putin holding on to power in Russia with 750 billion dollars in the bank?
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We should come up with a term for when someone keeps running for President, I’m thinking we call it getting “the runs.”
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I wish he’d just get it over with and ask his cronies in the Eastern Orthodox Church to crown him Tsar.
A cyberpunk scenario come to life.
An interesting fact in regard to all that wealth (est. at $200-billion) is that the Romanov dynasty in pre-Revolutionary Russia was not considered the richest family in the country; that achievement went to the Iusupov clan. Putin’s trying to have it all: the money and the power.
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Well, you can’t really expect the voters to back a guy who is inevitably just going to let them down by hurling himself out a window or imbibing polonium or encasing his feet in concrete and hopping off a pier.
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In other news, experts conclude water to be wet.
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Spot the hell on. As terrified as I am of the prospect of what China may do with nanotech/AI/genetic engineering, the idea of a hollowed out Russia maintaining its power through bleeding edge technology combined with a certain lack of moral center in its leadership and the Russian ability to endure dystopian hardship may give us some interesting times. I can’t wait to see our version of Operation Screaming Fist!
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suddenly i’m reminded of this:
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In all seriousness, why waste time and effort on the charade? It’s not like this is Iran, where elections are partly meaningful, or the US, where phony elections will be needed to pacify a population that vaguely still remembers democracy when Turmp is symbolically re-crowned. Russia has never had democracy; the whole exercise is like if they spent millions on a St Patrick’s day parade.
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After this one, he’ll have to rotate a dummy in, again.
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When Putin was prime minister, I remember the news media saying that the prime minister, not the president, of Russia has the real power. Now that Putin is president, that’s where the power resides. When he switches back to prime minister, the power will follow him. Neat trick!
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I think it’s for the same reason Saddam Husain had regular elections in Iraq, which he naturally won with 90+ percent of the vote every time: a (perhaps not altogether misguided) belief that the international community won’t look any deeper than the surface detail that an election was held in order to claim legitimacy as a ruler.
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But - he’ll still be living in Russia.
If he retires to some island - the next Putin will steal all his money.
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Я государство
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Hate to be a nitpicker, but “Государство — это я.”
Sorry.
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Don’t be sorry, I just used a stupid autotranslate program, so I will immediately concede.
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The program isn’t wrong but the way I phrased it above is how it shows up in Russian translations of the original and it implies a touch more than ‘I am the state.’ It’s more “The state? That’s me.” Sort of.
My own Russian is limited but I am sure of this much.
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I guess winning the US election wasn’t enough for him…
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