Elections in Russia: is there democracy in the country? How it works?

The presidential election is already underway in Russia and will likely extend Vladimir Putin's rule until at least 2030.

The vast majority of votes will be cast over three days until March 17, although early and mail-in voting has started earlier, including in occupied areas of Ukraine where Russian forces are trying to assert their authority.

But this is not a normal election: the vote will essentially consist of complying with constitutional rites, without any prospect of removing Putin from power.

The current president's grip on the Russian electoral system has strengthened as the elections approach.

No anti-war candidates were allowed to run, and Alexei Navalny, the poisoned and jailed opposition leader who was the most prominent anti-Putin voice in Russia, died under mysterious circumstances in mid-February.

How long has Putin been in power and how long will he be able to extend his term?

In 2021, Putin signed a law that allowed him to run for two more presidential terms – of six years each – which could extend his term until 2036, after a referendum the previous year allowed him to reset his term limit clock. .

This election will mark the beginning of the first of these two additional terms.

Basically, he has been the country's head of state throughout the 21st century, rewriting the rules and conventions of the Russian political system in the quest to expand his powers.

This already makes him the longest-serving ruler in Russia since Joseph Stalin, during the Soviet Union.

Putin's measures to maintain control of the Kremlin include a constitutional amendment in 2008 that extended presidential terms from four to six years, and a temporary exchange of positions with his then-prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, in the same year, which preceded a quick return to power and the presidency in 2012.

When and where are elections held?

Voting takes place from Friday, March 15th to Sunday, March 17th. It is the first Russian presidential election to take place over three days.

Three weeks later, a second round of voting is planned if no candidate receives more than half the votes, although it would be a huge surprise if necessary.

This time, the Russians only elect the position of president. The next legislative elections, which form the Duma, are scheduled for 2026.

Early voting has begun in hard-to-reach areas since the last week of February, and approximately 70,000 people are eligible to vote in remote areas of Russia's Far Eastern Federal District, according to state news agency TASS.

The region represents more than a third of Russia's total territory, but only has about 5% of its population.

Before Friday, early voting also began in Zaporizhzhia, one of four Ukrainian regions that Russia said it would annex in September 2022 in violation of international law.

Russia has already held regional votes and referendums in these occupied territories, an action questioned by the international community and called a farce, but which the Kremlin considers fundamental to its “Russification” campaign.

Who is competing against Putin in these elections?

Election candidates in Russia are closely monitored by the Central Election Commission (CEC), allowing Putin to compete with a favorable field and reducing the chances of an opposition candidate gaining momentum.

The same thing happens for this election. “Each candidate presents juxtaposed ideologies and domestic policies, but collectively they fuel Putin’s goal of tightening his control over Russia during his next presidential term,” wrote Callum Fraser of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank.

Nikolay Kharitonov will be a candidate representing the Communist Party, which has been allowed to field a candidate in every election since 2000, but has failed to win even a fifth of the votes in any election since then.

Two other Duma politicians, Leonid Slutsky and Vladislav Davankov, are also running.

Davankov is deputy speaker of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, while Slutsky represents the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, the party formerly led by ultranationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who died in 2022.

All of them are considered pro-Kremlin candidates.

Strictly speaking, there is no candidate in the race who opposes Putin's war in Ukraine.

Boris Nadezhdin, the only anti-war figure in the elections, was banned from the elections by the CEC in early February after the body claimed it had not received enough legitimate signatures to support his candidacy.

In December, another independent candidate who had spoken out openly against the war in Ukraine, Yekaterina Duntsova, was rejected by the CEC, citing alleged errors in her campaign group's registration documents. Later, Duntsova appealed to people to support Nadezhdin's candidacy.

In early February, opposition activist Leonid Volkov called the elections a “circus” on social media, saying they were intended to ratify the masses' overwhelming support for Putin.

“It is necessary to understand what the March 'elections' mean for Putin. They are a propaganda effort to spread hopelessness” among the electorate, Volkov said.

Are elections fair?

Elections in Russia are neither free nor fair and will essentially serve as a formality to extend Putin's term in power, according to independent bodies and observers inside and outside the country.

Putin's successful campaigns were, in part, the result of “preferential treatment in the media, numerous abuses in office, and procedural irregularities during vote counting,” according to Freedom House, a global democracy watchdog.

Outside of election cycles, the Kremlin's propaganda machine has targeted voters with occasionally hysterical pro-Putin material, and many news sites based outside Russia were banned after the invasion of Ukraine, although younger voters and people with technology knowledgeable are accustomed to using VPN to access them.

Protests are also strictly restricted, making public expression of opposition a dangerous and rare event.