Russia today commemorates a constitution that has been so overhauled to give Putin absolute, unfettered power that it bears little resemblance to the one adopted in 1993 that was intended to make Russia an inspired democracy of a French-style semi-presidential regime.
The Constitution was approved during a constitutional referendum organized on December 12, 1993. The following year Boris Elstine made December 12 a public holiday in honor of the new regime. Russia, independent of the USSR, moribund in 1991, could not continue to live with the Soviet constitution of 1978.
Since 2005, the Russian Constitution Day (Russian Constitution Day) is now just an official memorial day. It is usually marked by public speeches and ceremonies, including the presentation of their first passport to young citizens who have reached the age of fourteen. As every year, the television towers of the Russian television and radio network are illuminated in the colors of Russia from 5 p.m. to midnight, in honor of Constitution Day.
During his first mandates, Vladimir Putin regularly asserted that the Constitution was sacred and that he would never touch it. In 2012, he still claimed “I have always defended and defend the Constitution of the Russian Federation. And it is clearly written there: no more than two successive mandates. ». The future will prove otherwise. Feeling popular support slipping away from him, his own United Russia party having performed poorly in the 2019 municipal elections, particularly in Moscow, Putin decided to adapt the constitution to his political project. The 2020 constitutional revision sets in stone Vladimir Putin’s right to run for two additional six-year terms, for 2024-2030 and 2030-2036. It is the presidency for life, or almost, because Putin will be 84 years old in 2036. The referendum is spread over seven days, from June 25 to July 1, to approve the fait accompli: the ballot boxes were in the hands of the presidents of polling stations for seven days and seven nights, without independent observers.
The Russian dictator took advantage of this to shape the country’s political culture in a sense that was both sovereignist and ultra-conservative. This revision of the 1993 constitution introduced the reference to God and religion whereas until then, Russia presented itself as a secular state. The new text imposes traditional values in family law, children’s education, sexuality, etc. It also places Russian law above international law. We also add the ban on contesting the territorial integrity of Russia as well as references to the heritage of the USSR.
The popular consultation requests a yes or no response to a package of forty-six revisions. And there is no participation threshold to validate the vote. Through this 2020 plebiscite, Vladimir Putin imposes a regime of personal dictatorship whose authoritarian character will worsen with the state of war established in February 2022, at the time of the aggression against Ukraine decided by himself. The ban on all opposition is now total and the media field is completely muzzled. We have moved, in a very few years, from an authoritarian regime which wanted to be concerned with respecting constitutional norms, at least on the surface, to a totalitarian regime worthy of the one that the Russians once knew. The most worrying thing is that dictator Putin’s project today consists of the annihilation of democracy on a continent-wide scale.
This tradition of celebrating the constitution, without respecting it, is inherited from the USSR. Until 1977, the 1936 constitution was celebrated every December 5. From 1978 to 1993, Constitution Day was marked on October 7, the day of the adoption of “The Constitution of Developed Socialism” in 1978.
An article from theAlmanach international editions BiblioMondeDecember 12, 2024
