As of: March 13, 2024, 5:14 p.m
By: Nils Hinsberger
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Russia is preparing for the presidential election.
While Putin leads the polls, the opposition is fighting for recognition and equality.
Moscow – The Russian presidential election is scheduled for March 2024.
Voting will last for three days, from March 15 to 17, and voters can cast their votes for their preferred candidate.
Current polls show that incumbent President Vladimir Putin is at the top of the popularity rankings.
However, the question of which candidates can run against the 71-year-old Putin is complicated.
It is well known that the Russian state apparatus does not make it easy for the opposition to prevail in elections.
What? |
Elections in Russia (also: presidential elections in Russia) |
|---|---|
When? |
March 15 to 17, 2024 |
Eligible voters |
Approximately 110 million eligible voters |
Voter turnout 2018 |
67.5 percent |
Number of possible candidates |
11 (as of January 2nd) |
Candidates have to overcome major hurdles to be admitted to the Russian election
So far only one opposition candidate, lawyer and human rights activist Boris Nadezhdin, had received permission from the Russian election commission to qualify for the March elections.
He was officially allowed to open a donation account for his presidential candidacy.
Nadezhdin has now also been excluded from the election.
In order to take part in the election, applicants approved by the electoral commission must collect 100,000 signatures for their candidacy.
You must be at least 35 years old and have lived in Russia for 25 years.
Since the last amendment to the constitution, they are also not allowed to have foreign citizenship or a residence permit abroad.
Opposition should be excluded from elections in Russia
However, so far no one except the candidate from the Citizens' Initiative party has qualified for the election in Russia.
Journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has already been excluded from the presidential election, allegedly because of errors in her documents.
Among other things, she campaigned for an end to the war in Ukraine and the release of political prisoners.
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Many opposition figures have fled the Russian government into exile or been arrested.
This fate also befell the prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who recently died in a Russian prison camp for reasons that are still unclear.
Will the Russia election become a sham election?
It can be assumed that the election only serves to legitimize Putin's power, as no “real” opposition members are allowed.
Nikolai Bulayev, deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission, said that 33 candidates have declared their participation in the presidential election so far, according to a report by the Russian news agency
Tass
.
However, there is not a single member of the opposition among them, but only politicians from the parties represented in the State Duma.
Everyone loves Vladimir?
Putin is planning a record result in the Russian election with a lot of staging and manipulation.
© Mikhail Metzel/dpa
Reports from Russia confirm suspicions of a sham election.
In the last presidential election in 2018, the opposition was able to campaign largely undisturbed, but one-sided media reports made for an unfair fight, according to the
Reuters
news agency .
Restrictions on freedom of expression, candidate registration and freedom of assembly are indicators of a non-free election.
Massive vote manipulation attempts suspected in the 2018 Russian election
Also striking was the threat to the Golos election observation movement, whose leader was even arrested.
Russia does not want to send an invitation to election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for the March elections.
The reason, according to Konstantin Kosachev, deputy speaker of the Russian Federation Council, is that they only want to invite organizations “that represent an objective, unbiased position and are not under the control of the West.”
During the last presidential election in 2018, the opposition observed around 3,000 attempts at manipulation, including multiple votes or defective ballot boxes.
The OSCE, which had around 600 election observers on site, determined that there was “an election without real competition.”
According to the organization, it was therefore not a “right choice”.
In addition, civil society was massively intimidated.
The course of the presidential election in Russia
In Russia, 110 million people can vote.
In the previous presidential election in 2018, voter turnout was 67.5 percent.
Normally 70 to 80 million eligible people cast their votes, as
Reuters
reports.
Voters decide for a candidate via direct voting.
The person who receives more than 50 percent of the votes becomes president.
If there is no absolute majority, a runoff vote will decide the outcome of the election.
Of the original eleven potential candidates, the electoral commission only allowed four to stand for election.
As of February 2024, according to Tass,
the list included
:
Candidate:in |
Political party |
|---|---|
Wladimir Putin |
Independent – Putinist (authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial) |
Leonid Slutsky |
LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) – right-wing populist / right-wing extremist |
Nikolai Kharitonov |
KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) – socialist/Marxist-Leninist |
Vladislav Davankov |
New people – liberal-conservative |
Is Putin's victory already certain?
The election in Russia seems to have already been decided before the vote.
According to the state institute All-Russian Opinion Research Center (VTSIOM), 78.8 percent of the population would vote for Vladimir Putin.
However, this information cannot be independently verified.
However, given the 2018 election, this forecast seems realistic.
At that time, according to official information, the president received 77 percent of all votes.
The war in Ukraine doesn't seem to be hurting the president.
Putin is apparently even using the war to further his candidacy.
According to the Associated Press (AP), his campaign was started by a war veteran who lost a son in the Ukraine war and thus has a direct connection to the ongoing fighting.
Putin could remain president of Russia until 2036
Putin also changed the Russian constitution in 2020.
The change allows him to run for re-election in 2024 and 2030.
In the past, the term of office was limited to two legislative periods.
This means he could rule until 2036 if he is re-elected.
The opposition continues to hope that Putin will be overthrown.
Before the election, Alexei Navalny called on the Russian population to vote for “anyone but Putin.”
However, it is highly unlikely that this plan will succeed.
(nhi)
Editor Nils Hinsberger wrote this article and then used it in an AI language model for optimization at his own discretion. All information has been carefully checked. Find out more about our AI principles here.