On March 17, 2024, Russia will hold a presidential election in which President Vladimir Putin is expected to run for a second term that might keep him in power until at least 2030. The election will take place on March 17, and the winner will be sworn in in May. On Thursday, the Russian parliament’s upper house voted on the date, effectively kicking off the election campaign. Voting will also take place in what Russia refers to as its “new territories,” which are regions of Ukraine that are now under Russian control. Ukraine says it will not stop until every single soldier has been ejected from occupied regions. Russia claims the territories have been annexed.
In Russia, around 110 million individuals have the right to vote, but only 70-80 million vote
In Russia, around 110 million individuals have the right to vote, but only 70-80 million vote. In 2018, the turnout was 67.5%. Putin, who took over the presidency from Boris Yeltsin on the final day of 1999, has already served as president for the longest period since Josef Stalin, surpassing even Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure. Some in the West saw the 1993 Russian constitution, which was partly based on France’s 1958 constitution, as a step toward democracy in post-Soviet Russia. It was formerly stated that a president could serve two consecutive four-year terms.
Amendments enacted in 2008 increased the presidential term to six years, while amendments enacted in 2020 abolished the requirement that no one serve as president for more than two terms “in a row.” The amendments also prohibited relinquishing any land. Putin has yet to announce his intentions, while Reuters reported last month that he had decided to run. With the support of the state and its media, he would be assured of victory.
The Kremlin says Putin enjoys overwhelming support from the Russian people
The West casts Putin as a war criminal and a dictator though opinion polls show he has approval ratings of 80% – higher than before the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin says Putin enjoys overwhelming support from the Russian people, that Russia does not want to be lectured by the West about democracy and that no politicians in the West enjoy similar levels of approval to those Putin has. In 2018, an OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) mission observed the election.
“After intense efforts to promote turnout, citizens voted in significant numbers, yet restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of assembly, association and expression, as well as on candidate registration, have limited the space for political engagement and resulted in a lack of genuine competition,” it said. “While candidates could generally campaign freely, the extensive and uncritical coverage of the incumbent as president in most media resulted in an uneven playing field. Overall, election day was conducted in an orderly manner despite shortcomings related to vote secrecy and transparency of counting.”
According to official data, Putin received over 56 million votes
Authorities have been putting pressure on Golos, an independent vote-monitoring initiative, in recent months. According to Golos, such attacks, including the incarceration of its chairman, are intended to hinder public observation of the presidential election. Putin will encounter little genuine opposition. In 2018, the runner-up, Communist strawberry tycoon Pavel Grudinin, who had previously supported Putin, received less than 9 million votes, or 11.8% of the vote. According to official data, Putin received over 56 million votes.
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most renowned opposition politician, is imprisoned and hence unable to run for president. Navalny has slammed Putin’s Russia as a thieving and criminal state. He has threatened that Russia’s leaders will be defeated by the forces of history and burned in hell for causing carnage in Ukraine. Pro-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is being held in detention awaiting prosecution for inciting extremism, stated in November that he intended to run for president despite knowing the March election would be a “sham” with the winner already determined. In addition to Putin and Grudinin, six other candidates stood in the 2018 election, including nationalist Vladimir Zhirnovsky, who died in 2022, Ksenia Sobchak, a socialite and the daughter of Putin’s old boss in St Petersburg, and Grigory Yavlinsky, a Russian economist turned opposition politician.