The 2018 Presidential Election in Russia POLICY BRIEF / APRIL 2018 AUTHOR: VSEVOLOD VERESHCHAHIN The 2018 Presidential Election in Russia Policy Brief – Vsevolod Vereshchahin, April 2018 Lately, the elections in Russia have the ruling regime were registered. So, ceased to be taken seriously as the octet of candidates running for the elections. Vladimir Putin, the world- presidency was consisted of: famous leader of Russia, was Vladimir Putin, who was nominated for predictably re-elected for his fourth the presidency for the fourth time. term in the office. Thus, Putin received Critics drew attention to the fact that a mandate to run the country until Putin's nomination even for a third 2024, which makes his mandate the term contradicts the constitution, but second longest in terms of its duration the CEC interpreted the article in such a in modern Russian history, after Stalin. way that no one can run for the presidency more than twice in a row. Thus, Putin´s candidacy was not According to the Chairman of the considered as a problem because Constitutional Court of the Russian Dmitrij Medvedev was ruling the Federation Zorkin, the most accurate country from 2008 to 2012. Vladimir name for Russian form of government Putin´s program was the Message to the is a mixed presidential-parliamentary Federal Assembly, delivered on March republic. In the Russian reality this 1, 2018, which had a great (but not only positive) response in the society. means that the president has very broad According to official figures, during the powers and is fully the head of election he scored 76.69% of the vote. executive. In fact, it all boils down to the fact that the executive has indirect Pavel Grudinin, quite unexpected control over the legislative and judicial, candidate from the Communist Party of which creates a serious imbalance Russian Federation. Before, usually the head of the Communist Party Zyuganov among the branches of power. In such was nominated, but this time they circumstances, the formation of the decided to change their policy. He is a Central Election Commission is actually director of the "Lenin State Farm", one carried out under the control of the of the most famous strawberry executive power, which has direct producers in the country. However, consequences in terms of its until recently, Grudinin had nothing to impartiality. do with the Communists, in the year 2000 he was a confidant of Vladimir Putin, until 2010 he was a member of Candidates overview the United Russia Party (the ruling Eight people have passed the party in Russia). There is an opinion verification of 300,000 signatures that the participation of candidate required for the registration as a Grudinin in the election pursued a goal candidate for the presidency of Russia. to increase the voter turnout in the Given the absolute control of the country, as well as to maintain the executive power over the CEC, only image of competitive election. those who either played a certain role in According to official data, during the the election or did not pose a threat to POLICY BRIEF | April 2018 election he scored 11.77% of the vote Boris Titov, the president's authorized and won the second place. representative for the protection of entrepreneurs' rights. He claimed that Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the permanent the main goal of his campaign was the leader of the LDPR, four times was a promotion of his economic program. As candidate for the presidency of Russia an employee of the presidential and never even took the second place. administration, Titov is mentioned in An eccentric populist, Zhirinovsky the "Kremlin report" of the US expresses the most aggressive moods in Treasury, which clearly indicates his society. The reason of his participation role as a fictitious candidate in the past in the elections is state funding, which election. Has typed 0.76% of votes. he and his party regularly receive. According to the CEC, he scored 5.65% Maxim Suraykin, chairman of the party of the vote. "Communists of Russia", the party- spoiler of the Communist Party of Ksenia Sobchak was perhaps the most Russian Federation. He has gained controversial candidate – she is very 0.68% and is of no interest. well known in society, and also very unpopular. Before the nomination, Sergei Baburin, a relatively popular Sobchak met with Putin and probably politician of the 90's, but now also not discussed with him her nomination. of interest. Promoted ideas, similar to According to insiders and the media, the course of the ruling party. Resulted her candidacy was invented in the with 0.65% of votes. bowels of the Kremlin in order to divert attention from oppositionist Alexei An important character in the last Navalny. In addition, in view of her presidential election was Alexei radical views, her candidacy could be Navalny, who is considered the main used as an attempt to alienate voters opponent of the current Russian from the opposition. She gained 1.68% government, and therefore the main of votes, according to official data. leader of the opposition. On December 25, 2017, the CEC refused to register Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of party Navalny as a candidate for the “Yabloko” (“Apple”) which was popular upcoming presidential election because in the nineties, has never been to the of an unexpunged or unexpired State Duma for the past 15 years. He is convictions in “the Kirovless case”. The an opposition figure, together with Supreme Court did not satisfy Navalny's Sobchak does not support the complaint against the decision of the annexation of the Crimea and believes CEC. The Constitutional Court refused that a repeated referendum must be to consider his complaint. All this took held. Lately, he has lost his popularity place against the backdrop of the fact in society not only due to his untimely that the European Court of Human statements about the policy of the Rights found the verdict null and void, authorities (when the government and while Russian legislation in this case Putin support was higher than 80%), provides for the supremacy of the but also because he does not propose decisions of the ECHR over its own. anything new since he got into politics, which happened in 1990. Consequently, Political campaigns his recognizability has fallen sharply. According to the official data, he The most significant and large-scale resulted with 1.05% of total votes. pre-election political campaign can be definitely called the campaign of Alexei POLICY BRIEF | April 2018 Navalny. He was the first to announce registered candidates, did not take part his intention to participate in the in the election debates, and also refused election (December 13, 2016), and since the free airtime on the federal television that time he conducted active agitation. allocated to him by law as a presidential In the conditions of non-admission to candidate. The key goal of Putin's television, the main mouthpiece of his election campaign, as the government propaganda was YouTube, where he representative, was to increase the published oppositional videos. A turnout at the election to reach the serious stage was the release of the 70/70 threshold (turnout/Putin's movie “Don’t call him “Dimon””, which support), and the entire election system exposed Prime Minister Dmitry of 2018 was built for this purpose. Medvedev and proved his direct Attraction of outside candidates, involvement in corruption schemes. manipulations with their popularity, The film scored 26 million views and use of government resources and aroused public resonance, followed by falsifications – all this was used to reach an all-Russian rally that took place on the turnout threshold. The only real March 26, 2017 in 82 cities of Russia agitation event during the campaign of and became the largest since the Vladimir Putin was an appeal to the protests of 2011. The rally did not end Federal Assembly on March 1, filled with anything other than the detention with loud promises and predictions. of more than 1,000 people, including Navalny. Subsequently, he organized On December 23, 2017 Congress of the two more rallies: on June 26, 2017, Communist Party nominated Pavel when even more people came to the Grudinin, director of "Lenin State streets than on March 26 (up to 98 Farm", as a candidate for the presidency thousand people), Navalny was arrested of the Russian Federation. The again. On October 10, 2017, due to combination of his rhetoric, close to the Navalny's regular stay under arrest and older generation, being a new person in other reasons, fewer people came to the politics, and the support of the streets – from 2560 to 21520 people. Communist Party led to the fact that This difference is caused by the among the registered candidates he comparison of police and protesters' became the only one who overcame, data. according to official figures, a threshold of 10%. At certain points, he became During the Navalny campaign, more popular enough to start attracting votes than 69 "election headquarters" were from Putin's audience, which was the opened, each of which during its reason for the rapid detection of a large existence campaigned first for amount of compromising material on nominating Navalny for the election, him. During the campaign, he traveled and after the refusal of the CEC for the around the country in order to meet boycott that Navalny announced. In with voters and various organizations, addition, during the campaign, he conduct an extensive agitation on the visited 46 Russian regions in order to Internet; and participate in the debates. communicate with voters. Of course, he used the well-established infrastructure of the Communist Party, Vladimir Putin announced his a party that has been operating in nomination on December 6, 2017 Russia since 1993, in turn, adopting the during a meeting with workers of the structure of the CPSU.