They Could Have Led Russia

PART 3: 2000 -- The End of the Beginning

By the dawn of the new millennium, Russia’s political experiment with pluralism had exhausted itself. The unruly 1990s, a decade of privatization, parliamentary showdowns, bloody wars, and ballot-box unpredictability, came to a quiet end when Boris Yeltsin stepped aside on the last day of 1999. His chosen successor, a relatively unknown former KGB officer and prime minister named Vladimir Putin, inherited both the presidency and a country desperate for stability.

The 2000 presidential election was less about competition and more about coronation. Though formally contested, the outcome felt predetermined. The era of chaotic elections, when communists, generals, reformers, nationalists, and oddballs all had a shot, was giving way to a new political architecture: tightly managed, rigidly hierarchical, and insulated from genuine opposition.

This final installment in our three-part series traces the last truly pluralistic Russian election. It marks not only the ascent of Putin but also the symbolic closure of a chapter in which political power still hung, however briefly, in the balance.

You can review the previous installment below:

Dear Readers and Subscribers,

Let us recall, for this final part, the names and faces of those who stood for the presidency in the twilight of Russia’s uncertain democracy.

PART 3: 2000 — The End of the Beginning

The 2000 elections closed the nineties both chronologically and as a distinct political era. They were held early because Yeltsin terminated his powers and transferred them to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Putin achieved his first victory in these elections and did not lose thereafter. (Excpet once: to Dmitri Medvedev (2008-2012) He received 52% of the votes.) His decisive stance on the newly erupted conflict in Chechnya, as well as the “freshness” of his image in the eyes of voters, played to his advantage.