Putin is sure of winning, but the Kremlin wants a landslide victory

There are no surprises as to who will win the Russian presidential election next weekend with the incumbent president, Vladimir Putin, set to win a fifth term, keeping him in power until at least 2030.

The heavily organized vote that will take place from Friday to Sunday is not expected to hold any nasty surprises for the Kremlin, which months ago told CNBC it was confident Putin would win the vote comfortably.

This is especially true in a country where Russian opposition figures are not represented on ballots or in mainstream politics, and most activists have fled the country. Those who remained found themselves arrested or imprisoned or died in mysterious circumstances, as in the case of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The Kremlin has denied playing a role in his death.

In the 2024 elections there is no doubt who will win the vote; Putin’s name appears on the ballot along with only three other candidates who are part of Russia’s “systemic opposition”: Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), and Communist Party candidate Nikolay Kharitonov.

Seen as symbolic political opponents whose parties are generally pro-government, their inclusion on the ballot is designed to lend a degree of respectability to the vote and a semblance of plurality to Russia’s effectively autocratic political system.

Putin has been in power as both president and prime minister since late 1999 and shows no sign of being ready to relinquish control of the country. He is supported by a small and loyal circle and enjoys the support of the Russian security services.

However, reflecting the Kremlin’s nervousness about any potential electoral upset, even candidates who were only marginally representative of the “non-systemic opposition,” such as anti-war aspirants Yekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin, were barred from participating in the elections. Russian Central Election Commission. The ban was widely seen as politically motivated.

More than 110 million Russian citizens are entitled to vote in elections, as are around 6 million people living in four partially Russian-occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine, much to Kiev’s disdain.

Putin’s approval rating in Russia is at its highest level since 2016, at 86% in February, according to the independent Levada Center, although analysts such as Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, note that the ” Putin’s model of power is heavily dependent on two unstable pillars: “passive conformity and fear”.

Both factors have certainly been amplified since Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022, with any perceived criticism of Russia’s “special military operation” – described as a glorious and patriotic defense of the Russian homeland – potentially leading to citizens in prison. The fact that an estimated 315,000 Russian soldiers were injured or killed in the conflict is not something the Kremlin will address in public; Russia does not release data on deaths and victims.

The Kremlin hopes to see a high turnout in this election – the first time a presidential vote has been held in three days – and is seeking a landmark victory for Putin in order to legitimize the war, analysts note.

“The Kremlin seeks an election result that demonstrates overwhelming public support for Putin and, by extension, his domestic and foreign policy agenda,” Andreas Tursa, advisor for Central and Eastern Europe at consultancy Teneo, commented on Thursday .

“The Kremlin is using the electoral competition to reaffirm Putin’s legitimacy, mobilize public support for his policies and show unity and determination to his external adversaries,” he added, with the Kremlin seeking a “landslide victory.”

“According to official data, Putin received 77.5% of valid votes in the 2018 presidential election which saw a turnout of 67.5%. This year both figures could be even higher,” he said. said.

“Putin does not face any real competition in the vote and, if necessary, the electoral authorities have various tools at their disposal to achieve the desired turnout and result. However, the preference is to generate the result with as little interference as possible,” he said. noticed.

Growing authoritarianism in Russia and the erosion of the last vestiges of democracy in the country during Putin’s tenure have provoked widespread criticism and consternation. Therefore, it is no wonder that the 2024 vote has already been condemned by opposition activists, as well as neighboring Ukraine.

Kiev has been tough on voting taking place in Crimea, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk this week. Cases of coercion and illegitimate voting practices have already been reported, including evidence of armed soldiers accompanying pro-Russian officials, holding ballot boxes, as they went door to door to collect votes.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday that Russia’s attempt to “imitate” presidential elections on its territory “demonstrates the Russian Federation’s continued flagrant disregard for the norms and principles of international law.” He called the voting illegal and urged citizens of the occupied regions not to participate.

Russian opposition activists, most in self-imposed exile to escape arrest, imprisonment or attack, also condemned the elections.

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, called on Russian voters to vote for “any candidate except Putin” and called on citizens to vote en masse at noon local time on March 17, with the intention to overwhelm the polling stations. She also called on the West not to recognize the election results. Kremlin opponents also called on supporters abroad to protest outside Russian embassies next Sunday.

Dmitrii Moskovii, an opposition activist and representative of the Russian Democratic Society in London, said the protests gave people a chance to show their opposition to Putin and the war.

“When we talk about Russia, we are always talking about a quasi-authoritarian regime in which there is no freedom of election, we are talking about an election that will obviously and certainly be falsified by the Russian authorities,” he told CNBC on Thursday.

The appearance of free and fair elections appears to be something the Kremlin is little concerned about, with analysts noting that the 2024 vote will take place with far less scrutiny than previous votes, reflecting Russia’s increasingly hands-off attitude in compared to international democratic norms.

“Recent changes to Russian election laws make it virtually impossible to conduct meaningful monitoring and have significantly limited the role of the media,” Anna Caprile, a political analyst at the European Parliament, said in an analysis on Wednesday.

“The reconfirmation of Vladimir Putin seems inexorable. The Kremlin’s objective, however, is not just victory, but an overwhelming result, both in terms of turnout and percentage of votes. This would legitimize Putin’s legacy and his war of aggression, relegating the remaining opposition to an even more marginal role and allowing Putin to implement, unchecked, his vision for the next six years,” he noted.