The next presidential election in Russia, the eighth in country’s history, is scheduled to be held from 15-18 March, 2024. In case, no candidate is able to secure more than 50% of the cast votes, a run-off will take place exactly three weeks later, on 7 April, 2024. 09 party representatives and 15 independents filed their nomination papers within the prescribed limit before the ‘Central Election Commission’ (CEC) for registration as candidates. However, the most important candidate i.e. Alexei Navalny was evicted out of the contest on the basis of a prior criminal conviction; he later died on 16, February, 2024, in mysterious circumstances, during imprisonment. The criminal cases against Navalny were considered politically motivated and later his death in official custody has been branded as officially sponsored. After passing-through all the procedural bottlenecks only four candidates i.e. Vladimir Putin (71) Independent; Nikolay Kharitonov (75) of the Communist Party; Leonid Sluts ky (56) of Liberal Democratic Party, and; Vladislav Davankov (39) of New People Party, were cleared to contest the election. According to Callum Fraser dated 29, January 2024, in ‘RUSI’ ‘the CEC’s chosen opponents to the President will help to boost Putin’s narrative that he is the sole person capable of navigating Russia through this turbulent period’. Around 110 million Russians have the right to vote, though around 70-80 million voters usually cast their votes as per the previous track-record. As a whole, the up-coming elections are not expected to be fair and free; rather they are anticipated to be Putin –dominated, who is already accused of political repressions almost throughout the world, particularly in the western democracies. The backing of the ruthless state system and the one-sided official media will be crucial in this context. Also, ‘the suspiciously poor selection of opposing candidates, combined with their lackluster commitment to campaigning, only further adds to grim portents for Russia’s short-term political future’.
Vladimir Putin, who took-over as President of Russia on the last day of 1999, has already headed the country for longer than any other ruler of Russia since Joseph Stalin; crossing even Leonid Brezhnev’s 1964-82 tenure. The only gape was from 2008-12, when Putin’s protege Dimity Medvedev held the charge of Presidency and he himself served as the Prime Minister, as prescribed vide French modelled constitution. Two amendments in the Russian constitution were latter made to benefit Putin: the extension of presidential term from 04 to 06 years in 2008 however to be implemented from the next tenure, and securing further two six- year terms for the incumbent after 2024 vide the constitutional changes of 2020. The analysts claim that it was basically a license issued to Putin to stay in power up-till 2036. According to various political observers, through these legal changes ‘Putin has made it abundantly clear that he intends to cling to the reins of power in perpetuity’. The world press claims that ‘while the President remains firmly in control of Russia, the elections are an essential tool in demonstrating his legitimacy among the Russian population’. Analyst Callum Fraser has touched the enigma of weak opposition in Russia as well: he opines that ‘Putin’s extreme centralization of power, combined with Russian voter’s consistent apathy towards politics, allows for little galvanization of anti-government movements’. Moreover, he opines that ‘Putin’s current opposition has been carefully selected for three distinct aims: to reinforce Putin’s narrative that he is the only acceptable candidate to do the job, to form a controlled opposition to exert his policy without resistance, and to weaken any genuine threats to his authority’. Fraser also analyses Putin’s decision to contest as an ‘independent candidate’ despite out-and-out support from his United Russia Party’ and opines that it is a clear message to the public that although he operates within the boundaries of the Russia’s political system ‘he stands above it’ and he is ‘unburdened by petty party politics’. Moreover, to contest Presidential election independently showcases his confidence in his ‘personality cult’ apart from differentiating him from other contenders. He also prefers to project the image that ‘he stands alone: peerless and unassailable in the role of steering the Russian political machine’. According to ‘The New York Times’ Putin’s decision to ‘run without a party affiliation highlights his positioning as someone above the political fray in Russia’.
Another development merits to be kept in mind: President Putin has enacted a law authorizing the state agencies to confiscate the assets of people charged for discrediting the government and spreading false information deliberately about the military. Basically, this decree is an extension of a previous law issued after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has been used extensively to silence Putin’s critics before the upcoming Presidential elections in March. The law basically provided an instrument to the administrative authorities to silence thousands of political activists, party workers and bloggers; and go for a harsh crack-down on free speech and opposition to Putin. ALJAZEERA dated 24 February has declared this law as the ‘latest attempt to crush dissent’ that ‘comes into effect ahead of presidential elections in March’.
Ivan Nechepurenko, the well-known analyst of ‘The New York Times’, through their assessment dated 08 February, of the upcoming Russian elections viewed that hardly few will doubt regarding Putin’s re election for his fifth term in power. According to him ‘instead of election, the up coming vote will mainly be a referendum on Putin’s policies ——–most of all, his decision to invade Ukraine two years ago’. The prediction that Putin ‘is unlikely to draw divisions between his work as President and his campaigning for re-election’ proved to be true when Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov stated that ‘Mr: Putin’s daily routine would not be much different from his usual presidential schedule’. The comments of Aliona Hivco and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the two business leaders of Ukraine have been quite harsh in their article published in ‘FP’ dated 22 February, 2024, where- in they termed the Russian presidential election before-hand as a ‘carefully managed, entirely undemocratic exercise’ whose ‘outcome is already assured’. They claimed that ‘what began as a flawed but aspiring democracy in the early 1990s has morphed into a vicious regime that attacks its neighbors, stifles expression at home, silences opposition voices, and imprisons or assassinates those who dare to speak-up’. The above-said commentators highlighted two events: in 2021, the European Union was about to declare Putin’s position ‘illegitimate’ and in 2023 the issuance of an arrest warrant by the ‘international Court of Justice’ based on the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia—————-and stressed that a criminal should not be considered legitimate by Western democracies. The leaders of the ‘Group of Seven’ (G-7) vide their statement on 24 February condemned the Russian policies, particularly its aggression against Ukraine, in harsh words.
Still, three weeks are left in the elections. Although, the outcome of the exercise is known to all and sundry throughout the world, but an element of suspense is natural. What ultimately happens? It is a known secret.
