Putin Expected To Sail To Fourth Term; Voter Turnout The Only Question
By RFE/RL
Voters in Russia are casting ballots in a presidential election that is all but certain to secure President Vladimir Putin a fourth term in office.
The 65-year-old incumbent is riding a wave of government-stoked popularity on the fourth anniversary of Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and in the wake of a military intervention in Syria that has been played up on state-controlled television as a patriotic success.
The only real question is whether voters will turn out in big enough numbers to hand him a convincing mandate.
Casting his ballot in Moscow, Putin said, "I'm sure that the program which I propose for the country is right."
Voter turnout in Russia's Far East is already higher than that in 2012, reports say.
Several villages in Kamchatka and Chukotka reported voter turnout rates of 100 percent.
Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. local time in Moscow after opening hours earlier in Russia’s Far East.
They will close at 1800 GMT on March 18 in Kaliningrad, Russia's westernmost territory, with preliminary results expected shortly afterward.
The election comes as Russia's relations with Britain are highly strained over the nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury of a former Russian spy that London blames on Moscow.
In addition, the United States on March 15 imposed yet another round of sanctions on Russian firms and individuals in connection with what Washington says was Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
These tensions, however, only bolster Putin's popular image as a defender of Russia and give credence to his assertions that Russia is surrounded by foreign enemies.
The other seven candidates in the presidential election trail far behind Putin in opinion polls, with Communist Party candidate Pavel Grudinin polling 7 percent and journalist Ksenia Sobchak at just 2 percent. According to the Kremlin-friendly All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion, Putin is polling 69 percent support.
READ MORE
From opposition leader Aleksei Navalny: "The slogan of these 'elections:' Come and we'll feed you."
Gaming For 'Love Of Fatherland' As Russia Votes
By Christopher Miller
MOSCOW -- You’re a low-level Russian public servant who is entrusted on the eve of elections to ensure a high voter turnout within your constituency. Success could mean a promotion; failure could cost you your job.
Bribing voters with cash and busing them from one polling station to another to cast multiple ballots is effective, but illegal. And in this modern age of ubiquitous smartphones and social media, election cheats risk getting caught red-handed.
Can you successfully manipulate the results in your district by ushering people to the polls without being exposed?
It's all part of a humorous new game called Day Of Silence. Election Simulator. Created by the independent Russian news site Mediazona, its premise is rooted in Putin-era history, when Russian authorities have been caught ballot-stuffing, fudging turnout figures, and transporting voters to multiple polling stations to cast several votes in a practice dubbed "carousel voting." All of that in addition to the Kremlin's increasingly tight grip on major media and crippling prosecutions that target dissenters.
But for President Vladimir Putin and his allies, voter turnout is no laughing matter.
READ MORE
Why Wait? Takeaways (Already) From This Weekend's Russian Election
By Robert Coalson
As Russians prepare to go to the polls in the March 18 presidential election, the usual questions don't apply. No one needs to ask which candidate ran the most effective campaign, which one put forward the most compelling platform, who will make it to the second round. And no one needs to ask who will win.
Incumbent President Vladimir Putin will secure a fourth term as president, but that doesn't mean the events currently going on in Russia aren't instructive. Below are a few things that this process has brought to the fore.
CONTINUE READING
Meet 'Generation Putin'
They were babies when Vladimir Putin first became Russian president. Now they can vote for the first time in a presidential election.
The last of our Russian Elections 101 video explainers. This one is a look at some of the also-rans.
The first four installments were on The Watchdogs, The Outsider, The Formalities, and The Shoo-In.
- By Andy Heil
"Old stereotypes about one vote not changing anything, about the result being predetermined, do not apply to the current electoral campaign. It is different, it is open, transparent, active... We’ve come a long way in terms of openness of elections."
Or so says Russian Federation Council chairwoman Valentina Matviyenko.
- By Carl Schreck
'It Doesn't Take A Rocket Scientist...'
AP's James Ellingsworth interviews retired Russian tennis star Yevgeny Kafelnikov about his vocal support for opposition leader and banned would-be candidate Aleksei Navalny ahead of the March 18 election. Many notable Russian athletes are publicly loyal to President Vladimir Putin, including hockey star Alex Ovechkin. Kafelnikov's dissenting position is a rarity for celebrities in Russia. Ellingsworth writes:
With Putin poised to win as much as 70 percent of the vote, according to state pollsters, Kafelnikov told The Associated Press he won’t vote. Navalny has called on his supporters to boycott what he sees as an unfair election.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand [that Putin will win]," said the 44-year-old Kafelnikov, who stopped playing professionally in 2003. “My choice, who I was willing to give my voice to at the election, he was not allowed to run for the presidency.”
In the tradition of many other sports stars -- including retired American basketball player Karl Malone and baseball player Rickey Henderson -- Kafelnikov also refers to himself in the third person:
“I always thought sports and politics should not collide together on the same path, should be completely separate. Unfortunately as of late...someone’s using the professional athletes for their own benefit. I’ve been always open-minded and people obviously know that Yevgeny Kafelnikov is not for sale. There is no chance that I could sell myself for something like this."
But he adds:
“I’m sure other athletes who are supporting so-called Putin’s team, they do have a choice but they’ve chosen the path which they’re comfortable with. I’m not going to judge each one, why they did this.”
Read the entire article here.
Sobchak Again
Ksenia Sobchak, candidate, TV personality, and daughter of a Putin political mentor, is said to be planning to form a new party, The Party Of Change, along with ex-Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov to participate in upcoming (non-presidential) elections.
Here's an RFE/RL Russian Service video report (in Russian):
- By Andy Heil
With polling places set to open across Russia in less than 36 hours, a reminder of how diligent some voters -- or maybe falsifiers -- are.
Remember Precinct 451?