A non-existent suspense.
The Russian presidential election is being held from this Friday, March 15 until Sunday and will unsurprisingly see the all-powerful Vladimir Putin win for a fifth term at the head of the Russian Federation, the third in a row.
This is a two-round majority vote, like in France.
If one of the candidates wins by an absolute majority in the first round, he or she is directly elected and no second round is organized.
In case, by surprise, Vladimir Putin does not win in this weekend's vote, a second round is planned for April 7.
In 2018, he was re-elected with 77.5% of the vote.
A mandate shaped by Vladimir Putin
If Vladimir Putin can stay in the Kremlin for so long, it is also because he modified the Russian Constitution accordingly to allow him to reign supreme.
By means of a vast constitutional revision launched in 2020 and voted for by referendum (78.6%), he limited the number of presidential mandates for any Russian citizen to two.
But from 2024 and without taking into account previous mandates.
A boulevard so that he remains at the head of the country until 2036, when he will be 84 years old.
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Furthermore, Vladimir Putin has also tightened the eligibility conditions: to run, you must be at least 35 years old, have resided in Russia for at least 25 years and have never had another nationality or a residence permit in a state. stranger.
This last condition, implemented since the constitutional reform of 2020, de facto excludes opponents who are in exile in neighboring countries.
Candidates more decorative than incisive
To legitimize a rigged vote, Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party still face other candidates, whom they know are supporters of the power in place.
Each election sees, for example, the presence of a communist candidate, a vestige of the Soviet years, and a candidate from the LDPR, a liberal and nationalist right-wing party.
This year, septuagenarian Nikolai Kharitonov and fifty-year-old Leonid Sloutski are respectively in the running.
Alongside them, a fourth candidate is there, Vladislav Davankov.
Aged 39, he is a deputy for the liberal New People party and vice-president of the Duma.
His party, which brings together young people and business leaders, is regularly accused of being a puppet opposition to the Russian president, especially since it takes measures in line with the United Russia party.
A very your incentive to vote
A little over 114 million Russians are registered on the electoral roll and are expected to vote.
The “remote” ballot started on February 25 and ended this Thursday, March 14. Its main aim was to facilitate voting for residents of the most remote regions of Russia, but also for residents of the four annexed regions. in Ukraine, for which “mobile polling stations” are installed near homes.
VIDEO.
Russian presidential election: Putin calls for people to show “patriotism” and come vote
And even if many Russians do not vote (32% abstention in 2018), Putin is doing everything to get them to the polls: “He wants to persuade Russians that they live in a democracy.
However, in a democracy we go to vote.
He monitors the participation rate.
There is pressure on voters, but also on state companies, who ask their employees to go and vote accompanied by 5 to 10 people,” explains to Le Parisien Carole Grimaud, lecturer at the University of Montpellier , specialist in Russian geopolitics.
Enough to dissuade people from checking any name other than Putin on the ballot.