Russian presidential elections: Can Putin sail smooth?

By Ananya Upadhyay

The Russian Federation will witness Presidential elections this Sunday. There’s no looming suspense and the elections seem to be a mere formality, for the incumbent Vladimir Putin continues to top the popularity charts and opinion polls. This victory would mean a second consecutive term for Putin and his fourth term overall – Russia has set a limit of two consecutive terms for Presidential office. A very astonishing fact about these elections is, that of 70 candidates who registered themselves as candidates for the post, only eight cleared the nomination process.

How Presidential Elections in Russia take place

Russia is a multi-party state and follows a system of ‘direct elections’ for the Presidential post. These are the steps involved in the electoral process-

Nomination

Candidates can be nominated by a party, which has to have some representation in the State Duma (Lower House of the Parliament, equivalent to India’s Lok Sabha). Candidates nominated from parties that do not have representation in the State Duma, have to collect at least 100,000 signatures from Russian citizens. Individual citizens can also nominate themselves, but they need to collect at least 300,000 signatures with no more than 7,500 from each federal subject of Russia (federal subject refers a territorial constituent, like a state) and also from action groups made up of at least 500 people. These signatures are then verified by Russia’s Central Election Commission.

A two-round process

In order to win the elections, a candidate has to secure at least 50 percent plus one vote. In case that doesn’t happen, the top two candidates with the highest number of votes contest again in another round. This second round of elections is held exactly three weeks after the first. This year if that situation arises, it will be held on April 8, 2018.

Putin ‘rules’ public opinion

Putin served as the Acting Prime Minister in 1999 and within a few months as Acting President in 1999-2000. His first Presidential term was 2000-2004, second being 2004-2008. He then served as PM from 2008-2012 (because of the term limit) and bounced back to President for the third time (2012-2018). The term duration for office was increased from 4 years to 6 years under Dmitri Medvedev’s Administration in 2008. And it won’t be completely wrong to say that real power vested with Putin even during his Prime Ministerial stint.

Clearly, Putin is the people’s favourite. Reasons for his consistent jaw-dropping popularity can be traced from his first years in office. The Soviet Union had recently collapsed and Russia, its successor, was going through rapid structural reforms. In a fast globalising world, Russia saw a young, energetic leader in Putin after a long series of old men, who could communicate well and his dynamism was a new beginning for Russia’s political standing. Under Putin, there has been an increased focus on and support for small businesses, farming, science and manufacturing and Russia has started producing quality military equipment. An enhanced international image has cultivated strong popularity for Putin at home.

The Crimea Crisis, that the world frowned upon, was a welcome decision within Russia. Crimea is important in the Russian history for many reasons and nationalists have been yearning for its re-integration with Russia since Nikita Kruschev (President of USSR) marked the region as a part of Ukraine as per a territorial arrangement in 1954. In March 2014, Putin’s deployment of forces in Crimea was welcomed by a staggering 84 percent population.

Also important to note, press freedom is negligible in Russia. The opinion polls, domestic television networks, etc are state dominated and regulated. It’s overwhelmingly visible how the media excessively eulogizes Putin. Last month, Putin brought a new legislation that will limit foreign ownership in Russian media assets to 20 percent. This can lead to Vedomosti and Forbes Russia, the country’s largest two media outlets, being put under Kremlin-friendly control (Kremlin refers to the government in a similar fashion to how White House refers to the US government).

A more important factor is lack of an alternative. Mr Putin’s loyal supporters have been diligently sidelining, prosecuting, discrediting, co-opting or otherwise neutralizing political opponents. However, in 2012, an anti-corruption campaigner and a Putin-critic, Alexei Navalny, became very popular and became a potential opponent to Putin. No surprises, he was subjected to vague criminal charges and is struggling to keep momentum.

Calls for a boycott of elections

In January this year, Alexei supported by thousands of Russians, protested to boycott the upcoming Presidential elections. Alexei was barred from contesting the elections due to a fraud case which he says was politically motivated. However, he has more power as a non-candidate in posing a threat to Putin. He has garnered enough support to record a significantly low voter turnout. Although the protesters last year numbered to around 50,000 as compared to this year’s sporadic couple of thousands, Alexei has demonstrated a strong geographical influence by organizing protests in a dozen cities simultaneously.

Just like Stalin, Putin’s tactics to involve not only winning by a huge margin but doing that through elections that at least ‘look’ credible. In case of a low turnout, which is highly probable, Putin’s desired percentage levels to prove legitimacy and popularity could fall significantly.

What is the Kremlin’s strategy?

Kremlin wants Putin winning with an ambitious 70 percent voter turnout. In order to counter the threat of a low voter turnout, the elections will be conducted with the pomp and show of a carnival. According to RBC, polling station attractions are likely to include family games such as guess-the-word, football skills tests, and non-binding referendums on issues of interest to schoolchildren and their parents. Also, popular sportspeople, comedians and actors are expected to aid in promoting a ‘Photo at the Polls’ competition. Kremlin’s tactics involve even selling usually scarce supplies of meats and vegetables. In fact, it has offered citizens a chance to win iPhones for posting polling station selfies!