Putin is certain to win Russia's presidential election, but why does the vote still matter?

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin is certain to win the presidential election this weekend, and extend his grip on power until 2030. 

The Kremlin wants not just a simple majority victory for Mr Putin, but a landslide win over opponents and a stellar turnout at the polls, which will be held from Friday (Mar 15) to Sunday. 

Mr Benton Coblentz, programme assistant at think tank Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, said it is clear that Mr Putin is going to secure yet another term in office. 

“This election is a legitimising process for the Russian people. And what it serves to do is to disrupt and quiet any opposition to Putin's regime and to his being able to maintain a hold on power,” he told CNA’s Asia First on Friday. 

“He'll be able to go around the world and say that… Russia's democracy is perfect, that it's uncriticisable. 

“And Putin will say that he has a strong mandate to continue his war on Ukraine and to continue his aggressive foreign policy across the globe.”

WHAT IS DIFFERENT THIS ELECTION?

This election is simply “a test of loyalty, and the efficiency of the federal and local officials”, said Dr Leon Aron, senior fellow at public policy think tank American Enterprise Institute. 

“If he reaches (his target), it shows that he's in complete command of the administrative apparatus.”

For the first time, Russian-occupied regions Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are taking part in the election. 

Voting in these areas will “be monitored extremely carefully” by the Russian special services and secret police, Dr Aron told CNA’s World Tonight. 

“(These territories will) probably get an even higher percentage for a pro-Putin vote, simply because they are in a position where they really cannot vote otherwise.”

Political science professor Yoshiko Herrera of the University of Wisconsin-Madison added that there is no clear indication of the “actual number of people in those regions (or) how many people have registered”. 

“A lot of people are voting under duress, but this is sort of a black box…,” Prof Herrera told CNA938. “Those areas just kind of add to the levers of manipulation.”

This time around, polling stations will also be open for three days instead of one, and voters will be able to cast their ballots online.

“A lot of people interpret (the changes) as ways to manipulate the vote count,” said Prof Herrera. 

“It gives the government a longer amount of time to see how many people have voted and where, and it gives them the opportunity to change that if need be.”

Holding elections in those territories is illegal, stressed observers. 

“It is illegal under international law because those territories do not belong to Russia,” said Mr Coblentz. 

“That is what Putin, the Russian regime and Russian officials are trying to flout. What they're trying to do is establish that these territories belong to Russia and have a record that the residents of these regions participated in the election, that they participated in other Russian government functions.”

“UNIFYING FIGURE” FOR ALL RUSSIANS? 

Mr Putin has already served four terms as Russia’s president. 

He was elected in 2000 and 2004, before serving as prime minister under then-president Dmitry Medvedev between 2008 and 2012. He held on to power for two more terms, after winning in 2012 and in 2018.

In 2020, constitutional amendments made it possible for him to remain in power until 2036.

Mr Putin has campaigned as an independent since 2018. In the past, he ran as a candidate for the United Russia party. He has never lost an election.

“This is an indicator that the president is a unifying figure for all Russian citizens,” said political scientist Evgeny Kislyakov. 

The list of candidates for the 2024 presidential election is the shortest in Russia’s modern history, with only four names on the ballot. 

Mr Putin is running against Mr Nikolai Kharitonov, representing the Communist Party, Mr Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Mr Vladislav Davankov of the New People party.

Prof Herrera said Mr Putin’s independent status is a “curious thing”. 

“Many people have interpreted it as a sign that he is above all parties, that he is sort of the person that represents Russia and he doesn't need to be tied to a specific party,” she added. “He's the candidate for everyone.”

Of Mr Putin’s three rivals, Mr Davankov “could be the candidate that comes in second, and he could be a place for opposition-minded people to vote”, said Prof Herrera. 

He is “sort of vaguely anti-war, in the sense that he can make sounds about some kind of peace settlement at some point”.

Prof Herrera said that explicitly anti-war candidates were disallowed as candidates, adding: “Even though they didn't have a chance of beating Putin, they were still not allowed.”

Anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin, for instance, received the 100,000 signatures needed to be registered as a candidate, but was disqualified. 

“The three so-called opposition parties are totally in the pocket of the Kremlin. They agree with all the aspects of Putin's foreign policy and especially the war,” said Dr Aron. 

“So, the top opposition leaders are either outside the country, or in jail for enormously long terms, or killed like Alexei Navalny. So that to me points to the very unfair and unfree nature of this election.”

NAVALNY’S DEATH WON’T CHANGE ELECTION OUTCOME

Last month, Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, Mr Putin's most prominent critic, died in an Arctic prison. 

Prof Herrera said the opposition leader was charismatic, and stood up to the regime. 

“His death brought up all these things that the regime didn't want to talk about – namely, an alternative for Russia,” she said, adding that his passing will not change the election outcome. 

“On the one hand, that's significant. On the other hand, the regime still has a pretty strong grip on society.”

His widow Yulia Navalnaya has urged Russians to protest on election day by forming long queues outside voting stations at noon on Sunday. 

“What people are supposed to do is just show up to vote at that time,” said Prof Herrera. “So it'll be kind of hard to necessarily stop people from voting at noon on Sunday. It's one of the times when you're allowed to vote.”

Mr Coblentz warned that it is dangerous to participate in such activities in Russia. 

“We saw lots of Navalny’s supporters and opponents to the Putin regime come out to honour Navalny during his funeral in Moscow, which was a brave act by many Russians to express their support for the late opposition figure,” he added. 

“But we see that the Russian officials and Russian authorities are only increasingly cracking down on dissent.”

PROMOTING CONTINUITY

Meanwhile, opinion polls have shown that what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine has consolidated support for Mr Putin. 

Prof Herrera pointed out that the government has “tried to hide the casualties, which are enormous, from the population by not publicising (the numbers) and also by making a lot of payments to families who have lost loved ones”. 

“They've tried to downplay the costs of the war, and a lot of their financial policy during the last two years has been to try to hide the true costs of the war from the population,” she added. 

Russia is losing more than 50,000 military personnel every six months, and spends about US$300 million a day on the war against Ukraine. 

“We already see inflation is very significant for top products such as eggs, bread, and sugar,” said Dr Aron. 

“We also see a growing protest among the wives and mothers of the mobilised reservists. So, these are the weak points for Putin. But of course, they're not going to be expressed in any way in this voting.”

On the home front, the traditional values and continuity that his campaign promotes are largely seen as what the country needs.

The president is likely to continue with existing initiatives, including beefing up the economy and infrastructure, ensuring technological sovereignty, and supporting families and businesses.