The need to additionally legitimize this de facto new version | Екатерина Шульман

The need to additionally legitimize this de facto new version of the constitution brought on the idea of a national vote, which is not a referendum but an ad hoc plebiscitary procedure that, nonetheless, requires strong voter turnout to compensate for the laxity of its rules. The general voter, while approving of the social guarantees promised in the amendments, was not interested enough in the “checks and balances” part of the package to whip up some sort of civic enthusiasm and mass voter participation. Hence the second wave amendments catered to the taste of the conservative part of the electorate and gave the whole heterogeneous mass of amendments some semblance of ideological unity.

This unity, however, presented the next problem: the amendments as a whole, with their administrative, social, and ideological components, began to be perceived not just by members of the “commentariat” but by the ruling elites themselves as a kind of “political testament”[1] from a president who truly intends to leave by 2024. To prevent, as President Vladimir Putin himself called, the “eyes-shifting” search by elites of the next Russian ruler, extraordinary changes were implemented to the constitution, giving the president the option (but not the obligation) of running for office again".

https://www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/russian-parliament-and-pandemic-state-emergency-post-constitutional-changes-retaliatory-laws