Critics and media harassed
Russia is due to confirm Putin in office on March 17th
December 7, 2023, 11:45 a.m
The voting itself will probably be as formal as the current announcement of the election date. Because: Russian President Putin has locked up the most important Kremlin critics and is likely to be re-elected for six years on March 17th. But that doesn’t have to be the end.
The Russian upper house has set the date for next year’s presidential election. The Federation Council decided at a televised meeting that the election would take place on March 17. “This decision practically marks the start of the presidential election campaign,” said the chairwoman of the parliamentary chamber, Valentina Matviyenko. The polling stations will be open again for three days, as the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, announced.
The organization of the vote in the Russian-occupied parts of the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk will be decided at a later date. Ukraine continues to fight, with Western help, to wrest the annexed territories back from Russia. There will be no presidential election there in the spring because of the war.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin has not yet announced his candidacy for another term, but there is little doubt that he will run again in the election. The term of office is six years. State television has been showing programs for days in which citizens swear loyalty to the 71-year-old and promise to vote for him in his fifth candidacy.
The Kremlin expects a record result for Putin in the vote, which is dominated by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The president presents himself as a champion against the USA’s desire for supremacy and against NATO’s eastward expansion. The stylization of the West as an enemy against which Putin is fighting has caught the attention of many Russians. In addition, there are no longer any independent media in Russia. Many journalists have been working in exile for years, others took this step as part of the tightening of media laws after the large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Political protest is brutally suppressed in Russia.
Putin deliberately eliminates opposition
In the 2018 vote, Putin received 76.69 percent of the vote. Liberal opposition politician Grigori Yavlinsky, who calls for a ceasefire in Ukraine and peace negotiations, has declared his willingness to take part in the election again. However, he is not a really serious opponent for Putin. In the 2018 election, Jawlinski received 1.05 percent of the vote. Russia’s best-known opposition politician Alexei Navalny is serving a total of more than 30 years in prison in a penal colony after an internationally criticized trial. Navalny’s supporters are also imprisoned or have left the country. Other opposition members have fallen victim to assassination attempts or been locked up in recent years.
Putin began his first term as president in 2000; In between, he served as prime minister for four years – after a castling with Dmitri Medvedev – before being re-elected as head of state in 2012 and 2018. As a result of a constitutional reform passed in 2020 on Putin’s initiative, he could theoretically remain in office as president until 2036.
If Putin completes another six-year term in the Kremlin, he will overtake Joseph Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953. And Putin will then be Russia’s longest-serving head of state since Tsarina Catherine the Great in the 18th century.