The 2024 Russian presidential election: what you need to know
Why are these elections important?
Russia’s presidential election, which starts Friday and runs through Sunday, has the hallmarks of a horse race but is more of a predetermined Soviet-style referendum.
President Vladimir V. Putin, 71, will undoubtedly win a fifth term, with none of the three other candidates allowed on the ballot posing a real challenge. The main opposition figure who tried to spoil the election, Aleksei A. Navalny, a fierce critic of Putin and the war in Ukraine, died in an Arctic prison last month.
Still, the vote is important to Putin as a way to strengthen his legitimacy and refresh his favored image as the embodiment of security and stability. That image was tarnished when the war, touted as a quick operation to topple the government in Kiev, turned into a slog that left hundreds of thousands dead, severed ties with the West and ushered in heavier domestic repression.
“The Kremlin needs to show enormous popular support, and this support has increased since the start of the war,” said Nikolay Petrov, a Russian political scientist at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.
Does Putin face serious challengers?
The Kremlin usually ensures that Putin faces no real competition. The other candidates – all members of the State Duma, Russia’s parliament – voted for the war in Ukraine, for more censorship and for laws restricting gay rights.
Nikolai Kharitonov, 75, of the Communist Party, lost badly to Putin in 2004.
Leonid Slutsky, 56, of the Liberal Democratic Party, a nationalist group loyal to Putin, has said he will not unite voters against the president.
Vladislav A. Davankov, 40, of the New People’s Party, is nominally a liberal and has called for “peace” in Ukraine but has essentially supported Mr. Putin.
Two candidates who opposed the war were disqualified. A veteran politician, Boris Nadezhdin, alarmed the Putin government when tens of thousands of people across Russia lined up to sign petitions needed to run for office. The Kremlin invalidated enough signatures to ban him.
Will the Kremlin manipulate the results?
Russia held real elections about a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, the Kremlin has used various social, geographical and technical means to ensure that its candidate receives an overwhelming majority.
Although Putin is generally popular, he has long aimed to win more than half the vote, and more than last time. This year, that means he’ll surpass the 56 million votes he got in 2018; experts guess at 60 million.
Two key changes could increase the opaqueness of the vote this time around.
First, the elections will take place in the so-called ‘new territories’, the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow has annexed without fully controlling them. Russian election officials say the area has 4.5 million voters, a claim that is virtually impossible to verify during a war.
“We cannot control the numbers there and the authorities will use them as they please,” said Alexander V. Kynev, an independent election expert in Moscow.
The ability to vote online will also be more widely available, with electronic voters in 29 regions on one huge list, with no means of checking where or how they voted, Mr Kynev noted.
In a vast, diverse country like Russia, the Kremlin can also use more traditional means. Regions dominated by ethnic strongmen, such as the Caucasus, usually report huge turnouts, with Putin receiving 99 percent of the vote – even though relatively few people show up at polling stations.
Areas where state-owned industries predominate also tend to report heavy support for the president. To ensure the voting is successful, some polling stations hold lotteries for prizes such as household appliances or firewood. One Siberian region offers 16,000 prizes.
But the Kremlin must rely on some votes in the big cities, and that could be difficult. Excessive manipulation has caused unrest before. There could be a little more manipulation this year as election observers are barred unless candidates provide their IDs.
Can Russians protest?
Now that street demonstrations are banned, some of Putin’s opponents hope to cast protest votes. The simplistic method to lower his numbers is to vote for someone else, experts noted.
“Noon against Putin,” a campaign by Mr Navalny’s organization, suggests that polling stations will be overcrowded around noon on Sunday. But there are a number of hurdles, including possible confrontations with police.
Furthermore, in previous elections, few polling stations had more than 3,000 registered voters, while many polling stations had fewer than 1,000. “It is technically very complicated to create a crowd,” said David Kankiia, an analyst at the election watchdog Golos, who has been banned in Russia.
Can Putin remain president for life?
Since he was first appointed to succeed President Boris Yeltsin in 2000, Mr Putin has said the Russian constitution would determine the length of his term. He then continued to rewrite the Constitution.
When asked in 2014 whether he would remain president forever, Mr. Putin responded responded“This is not good and it is harmful to the country and I don’t need it either,” before adding: “We will see what the situation will be like, but in any case the duration of my work is limited by the constitution .”
In 2008, when term limits forced him to step aside, he became prime minister under President Dmitry A. Medvedev, although Putin remained in power until he reclaimed the top position in 2014.
Presidential terms were extended to six years before the 2018 elections, and then Putin changed the constitution again in 2020 to reset his term clock. At this point, he could serve at least two terms until 2036. If Putin holds out, he will soon surpass Joseph Stalin’s record of 29 years of rule.
When will the voting results be known?
The count is expected to be announced sometime Sunday evening Moscow time.
Where can I find more information?
Putin is less vocal about nuclear war in his pre-election messages