MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. The amendments to the Russian Constitution and the emergence of the so-called presidential consensus have become the main political event of 2020, says Pavel Danilin, the CEO of the Center for Political Analysis think tank.
"The main event of the country’s political life [this year], is, of course, the approval of the presidential amendments to the Constitution. The nationwide vote confirmed the unconditional political leadership of President Vladimir Putin; what happened is an effective legal cementing of the last 20 years of the new power, the new Russia," Danilin said.
According to the expert, the amendments made the Constitution "a politically modern and legally strong document, which provided an impulse for the development of the nation’s legislation for decades."
"The most important is the formalization of the new presidential consensus, which we used to call the Crimean one. It has transformed somewhat today. We used to have this Putin’s consensus, the Putin’s majority, then it was the Crimean consensus, and now it is the new consensus that we see in the voting result. These 74,215,000 people who voted in favor of the [amended] Constitution - this is the presidential consensus," the expert said.
He also reminded that some opposition parties, including the Communists, "sought to use the discussion of the amendments not to doubt their relevance, but to assert themselves ahead of the 2021 Duma elections."
"While not speaking directly against the amendments, supported by the entire society, they do the twisting, pretending to be the last opposition that does not solidarize with the authority. I don’t know how effective it would be for the Communist Party, but it is unlikely they will gain a major electoral effect this way," Danilin added.