No Russian election since Soviet times has been manipulated to the extent we are seeing in the 2024 “presidential election”. The political context is dictatorial, the regime’s power grab comprehensive. The media are subject to wartime censorship, and there is not even a pretence of political competition. The death of Alexei Navalny has only heightened the atmosphere of fear. Yet although the vote is an authoritarian plebiscite, a rubber stamp, signs of popular criticism of the regime and the war should not be overlooked. Germany and Europe should unequivocally state that this election is undemocratic and illegitimate. But even more importantly, contacts with critics of the war inside Russia must be maintained.
The Russian regime’s key domestic political project of the past decade culminates on 17 March 2024, with Vladimir Putin’s “re-election” as president. Putin will be confirmed in office for the fifth time, and – actually in violation of the constitution – for the third time in succession. The Kremlin has long been working towards this moment. The Russian state responded to the wave of demonstrations against Putin and his regime in winter 2011/12 by switching to authoritarian stabilisation in all political spheres. The lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma, passed a succession of new laws designed to gradually eliminate political opposition and independent civil society. The means for manipulating elections were systematically optimised. The Duma elections in 2016 and 2021, the 2018 presidential election, and the local and regional elections of recent years should be understood as trials for this year’s “presidential election”. The state-controlled media have mutated into a powerful propaganda tool, while independent journalism has been stamped out entirely. The dominant propaganda narrative has grown into a quasi-ideology over time, a concoction of ultra-conservatism, imperialism, anti-Americanism, chauvinism, illiberalism and anti-feminism.
The regime exploited the annexation of Crimea in 2014 to stoke nationalist sentiment in broad sections of society. But the effect only lasted until 2018, after which the repression had to be expanded and the propaganda ramped up, in order to shield the state from growing dissatisfaction in the population.
In 2020 Putin took the decisive step of securing his grip on power “legally” with a new constitution. While it still limits the president to no more than two consecutive six-year terms, it restarts the clock in 2024. This “annulment” of his previous terms would permit Putin to remain head of state until 2036. The reform was rushed through by dubious means during the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic and “confirmed” in a heavily manipulated referendum in July 2020.
The Russian state responded to the Covid pandemic and the democracy movement in neighbouring Belarus in August 2020 with a dramatic political radicalisation. This culminated in the full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022, which in turn triggered another wave of autocratisation. Russia is today a dictatorship with totalitarian and fascist tendencies. All these strands come together in the 2024 “presidential election”.
Electoral process and institutions
The new constitution heavily restricts eligibility to stand for the presidency. Candidates must have lived permanently in Russia for at least twenty-five years (previously ten). And – in a departure from the pre-2020 constitution – they must not ever have possessed citizenship of or residency in any other state. However, Russian citizens who “previously held the citizenship of a state that has in whole or in part become part of the Russian Federation” are explicitly excluded from the new restriction. This arrangement is designed to accommodate the annexed regions of Ukraine, but would also cover any other territories that might be annexed in future.
There are several routes to a candidacy. A candidate standing for a party that is not represented in the State Duma must submit 100,000 signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) Of these, no more than 2,500 may originate from any single region. Independent candidates face even greater obstacles. First of all, they are required to form an initiative group of five hundred public figures (doverennye litsa) who are prepared to support their candidacy. And then they need to submit 300,000 signatures (maximum 7,500 per region), in order to be registered by the CEC.
Control over the informal practices of the electoral process is central – and even more important than the formal rules. It lies largely in the hands of the so-called domestic political bloc within the presidential administration, for which Sergei Kirienko is responsible. Kirienko (61) has been deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration since 2016. In the 1990s he was regarded as a “liberal technocrat”. Under Vladimir Putin Kirienko has enjoyed a meteoric career in various state agencies. His responsibility for central areas including electoral oversight, the Russian regions and the annexed Ukrainian territories gives him important levers of power. The domestic political bloc instructs and supervises the leaderships of the regions and ensures that election turnout and results satisfy expectations.
The Central Election Commission, headed since 2016 by Ella Pamfilova (60), is responsible for technical implementation and procedures. Like Kirienko, she also has a “liberal past”. Since 2016 her role has been to arrange and defend the manipulation of the presidential and Duma elections.
The regime employs a multitude of instruments to control the electoral process. The signature lists are currently the central tool for controlling the field, by excluding candidates on grounds of “formal errors”.
In 2020 voting was extended from one to three days. The longer period expands the opportunities for ballot stuffing and other irregularities such as falsification of electoral registers and turnout.
Electronic voting has been expanded since 2019. For the 2024 “presidential election” it will be available in 29 regions accounting for more than 47 million residents (and more than 43 percent of the electorate). This makes the election process even less transparent and creates additional possibilities to falsify the results. Possibilities to observe the vote, such as public access to video feeds from polling stations, have been heavily curtailed.
Over the years the Russian state has made independent election monitoring essentially impossible. The 2018 presidential election was the last election of any kind to be observed by the OSCE. In the run-up to the 2021 Duma election the Russian government restricted the number of OSCE observers to a point where credible monitoring would have been impossible. As a result, the OSCE cancelled the mission. Moscow has invited increasing numbers of pro-Russian election observers, mostly from left- and right-wing populist parties in EU member states, including figures from the right-wing Alternative for Germany and the German Left Party. These “election observers” have even operated in annexed Crimea, in contravention of international law. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) also sends observers. The regime cites the approval of both groups as evidence that its elections are free and fair.
Systematic election monitoring by civil society groups is no longer possible. The Movement for Defence of Voters’ Rights – Golos (meaning “vote” or “voice”), which had operated highly professionally for many years, was declared a “foreign agent” in 2013 and liquidated by the Ministry of Justice in 2016. Golos regrouped to continue its work without registration but found itself subject to increasingly harsh repression. In 2021 it was again classified as a “foreign agent”. Many of its members have been in exile since 2022. Its most influential leader, Grigory Melkonyants, was detained in Moscow in August 2023. The state prosecutor accuses him of having collaborated with an “undesirable organisation”. Golos had been a member of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), but ended the relationship after the EPDE was declared an “undesirable organisation” in Russia in 2018. The incarceration of Grigory Melkonyants is yet another measure to assert complete control over the electoral process. He will be on remand until at least mid-April and is unlikely to be released any time soon.
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About the author:
Sabine Fischer is a Senior Fellow at SWP in Berlin. She is part of the research group on Eastern Europe and Eurasia