Training Early for Post-Putin Politics

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MOSCOW — Presidential elections are normally a major affair. The competition may be more or less open, the candidates more or less exciting, the outcome more or less uncertain, but electing a head of state usually captures a nation’s attention. These days in Moscow, though, with glitzy “2018” signs illuminating the city center, you would be forgiven for thinking that the soccer World Cup, hosted by Russia, is the event to watch this year.

Vladimir V. Putin is so used to presidential elections that he almost forgot to announce his candidacy for the next one. On Dec. 6, he finally confirmed that he would run for a fourth term on March 18 — incidentally, the fourth anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Since his approval ratings hover around 80 percent, that puts him on course to be in office until 2024. By then, he will have been in power for 24 years. No wonder he is running as an independent candidate this time: President Putin does not need a party to support him — he just needs to run as President Putin. His legitimacy stems from holding power since the day the millennium was born.

Among pollsters, “apathy” is the word that best describes voter sentiment. Journalists noted that the president himself looked slightly bored during his annual news conference on Dec. 15, even though he kept it going for 3 hours 40 minutes. His first term was dedicated to restoring order in Russia’s post-Yeltsin chaos. The second term focused on the economy. During his third term, Mr. Putin made Russia great again — abroad. So far, mystery surrounds his next goal. No electoral slogans, no major campaign theme. If the candidate has a big idea for his fourth term, he is keeping it to himself.

That makes the real question what will happen not on March 19 but in 2024. The idea of post-Putinism is emerging slowly as an object of political study. The Constitution does not allow a president to run for more than two consecutive terms, and Mr. Putin has already used the stratagem of switching with his prime minister, Dmitri A. Medvedev, from 2008 to 2012. He is on record saying that he will not change the Constitution to stay indefinitely in power.

Six years may seem like an eternity in politics. Not in Russia. While experts speculate on what kind of successor President Putin might groom or on which group might take over in the unavoidable infighting after he leaves, others see an opening in this “fin de règne.” An entire generation is looking forward to post-Putinism. Its members have not yet been allowed on stage, but they are definitely rehearsing.

Their most visible actor is Alexei Navalny, the only candidate who has been running a real presidential campaign so far. Unsurprisingly, on Dec. 30 Russia’s Supreme Court barred him from taking part in the election, citing a fraud conviction that he says was based on trumped-up charges. He immediately called for a boycott of the election. Mr. Navalny, a 41-year-old lawyer, ran for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and came in second, with about 30 percent of the vote.

Since then, he has become the No. 1 opposition figure, which has harmed him — he is sometimes jailed briefly, frequently attacked, constantly harassed — but it also has protected him: Rather than turn him into a martyr a year ago, a court suspended his sentence on questionable charges of embezzlement while sending his brother, Oleg, to prison in the same case for three and a half years to keep pressure on Alexei. For over a year, Mr. Navalny has been crisscrossing Russia to build a political organization, with a network of regional headquarters and tens of thousands of volunteers. The crowds at his rallies are not huge, but they are young and committed, making this operation look very much like a solid investment.

And there is a surprise entrant, who popped up in late October and announced her candidacy. Ksenia Sobchak, 36, is a household name in Russia: Her father, Anatoly Sobchak, was the first elected mayor of post-Soviet St. Petersburg. A reformist, he made Vladimir Putin his deputy, and the men remained friends until Mr. Sobchak’s death in 2000. Ms. Sobchak herself has been involved in a series of lucrative businesses and was a celebrity on national television until her participation in political protests cost her job in 2012. Since then, she has been a journalist for TV-Dozhd, an independent television channel. Inevitably, the big question in Moscow has become: Is she a Kremlin stooge?

It did not take Mr. Navalny long to suspect so. Some observers assume that Ms. Sobchak has been asked to run simply to spice up a dull campaign and increase the turnout. Others speculate that she is a fake candidate looking for an opportunity to return to national television. Nevertheless, as the political analyst Nikolai Petrov points out, she brings to the campaign “ideas impossible to discuss in the public space.”

Bold and articulate, Ms. Sobchak questions the annexation of Crimea and the endless reign of Mr. Putin; she raises the issue of political prisoners; she even asked the president at his December news conference why it was so hard for opposition candidates to campaign, mentioning Mr. Navalny’s name on national TV. (Mr. Navalny thanked her on Twitter that day.) The test will come when she must produce, by Feb. 9, the 100,000 signatures from around the country needed to register as a candidate. Few think she can achieve it without a green light from the Kremlin.

What if the supposedly fake candidate became real? Vitali Shkliarov is certainly working at it. Mr. Shkliarov, a Belarus national who has studied in Germany and says he learned about politics in the internet age by working on the campaigns of Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders, has brought his expertise to Ms. Sobchak as a consultant. “She’s tough, she is focused,” he told a group from the European Council on Foreign Relations who met him in mid-December in Moscow. “I accepted because I feel the country needs a change. Russia is a political desert. Everything is hard, from renting a space to raising money.”

Mr. Shkliarov is convinced that creating “a political Uber” and managing campaigns “like start-ups” will ultimately change the political process in Russia, “although it will take a bit longer.” Again, 2024 looms. He claims that his candidate has already assembled a staff of about 70 people and more than 1,000 volunteers. Vladislav Inozemtsev, a well-known economist and supporter of democracy, is writing an economic program for her.

Beneath the surface, other actors are taking stock. In September, district elections in Moscow gave some hope to opposition activists, even with a record low turnout of 15 percent. More than 1,000 independent candidates were fielded, and 267 of them were elected. Another young opposition politician, Dmitry Gudkov, 37, the son of a K.G.B. lieutenant colonel, engineered this movement; he intends to run for mayor of Moscow in September. One newly elected district counselor, Olga Mostinskaya, 36, a former Foreign Ministry translator, has set up an informal organization to work on local issues. She talks enthusiastically about “this heterogeneous group of young people who came to politics this autumn.”

“People are tired of the regime, but they value stability,” she said. Apathy has its limits. When nothing moves at the top, grass-roots activism may well be the best recipe to get ready for post-Putinism.