Elections are the celebration of democracy, but not in Russia. For years, these terms have given way to others such as patriotism, tradition, stability, heroism or leadership. Yesterday the streets of Moscow did not have remains of posters, balloons, banners or pamphlets, all that paraphernalia that in Western elections is part of an electoral campaign. This has been of very low intensity, since it was known for years that the current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was going to win.
The public schools with polling stations suspended classes yesterday, Friday, so the fun and joy could not be heard when entering and leaving class. Only a police car in front of some centers suggested that something was happening.
From time to time someone was seen arriving to cast their vote. Then she left, but in his voice you couldn’t hear the bells of someone who believes that he is going to change something for the better in his country. “Putin is the only one who can keep us united these days,” said a middle-aged woman, Anna, a housewife, after participating in the first of the three days of these atypical presidential elections in Russia.
With his re-election, Putin will enter his fifth term as president. His victory is expected to be resounding. This week the Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) gave him 82% of the votes.
The other three candidates have no chance. Little known, Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party), Leonid Slutsky (Liberal Democratic Party) and Vladislav Davankov (New People), belong to the systemic opposition, present in the Duma, but that never stands up to the Kremlin.
The real opposition is beheaded. After years of repression, its main figures are in prison, exiled or dead.
One of the unknowns of these elections is what effect the “Midday against Putin” initiative launched from exile by the team of opposition leader Alexei Navalni, who died last month in an Arctic prison, will have. His former collaborators and his widow, Yulia Naválnaya, have asked their followers to go to their schools at exactly twelve noon tomorrow, Sunday, March 17, the last day of voting, to stand in line to pick up a ballot and express their protest by voting for someone other than Putin.
The second unknown is how many Russians will go to the polls. According to official data, the voting on the first day was at a good pace (31.38% nationwide), in line with the wishes of the Kremlin, which wants to present Putin’s victory as completely legitimate. In Moscow, with a population of 12 million, almost three million people voted, more than 2.3 million of them electronically. One of those who voted this way was Putin, the Kremlin announced.
The day saw several incidents, which could have been acts of protest. Several people put an antiseptic similar to mercromine but green in color called zelionka into ballot boxes in Moscow, Crimea and Karachaievo-Cherkessia (Caucasus). According to the Fontanka.ru website, a 21-year-old woman was arrested for throwing a Molotov cocktail at a voting center in St. Petersburg. And the Electoral Commission reported more than 10,000 cyber attacks against the electronic voting system, which it managed to resist.
Another element of these elections is the war with Ukraine. This week, Kyiv has carried out a wide deployment of rocket and drone attacks against Russian territory, and Russian anti-Kremlin militias have launched attempted incursions from Ukraine into the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk. Putin on Wednesday accused Ukraine of trying to interfere in the elections and yesterday added that “these attacks will not go unpunished.”