Russians are heading to the polls over the next three days for a presidential election that is set to hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term in power as he faces opponents carefully curated by the Kremlin and who pose no real threat to his legitimacy.
Russians will vote from Friday until Sunday across the country’s 11 time zones – from the far eastern regions near Alaska to the western exclave of Kaliningrad on the Baltic Coast – and its 88 federal subjects, including parts of occupied Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia after it launched its full-scale invasion more than two years ago.
With most opposition candidates either dead, jailed, exiled, barred from running or simply token figures, a victory for Putin, who has in effect been Russia’s head of state since before the turn of the century, is all but guaranteed.
Putin’s reelection would extend his rule until at least 2030. Following constitutional changes in 2020, he would then be able to run again and potentially stay in power until 2036, which would see him secure his place as Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) approved only three candidates to oppose Putin: Leonid Slutsky of the Liberal Democratic Party, Vladislav Davankov of the New People Party and Nikolay Kharitonov of the Communist Party. All three men are thought to be satisfactorily pro-Kremlin and none oppose the invasion of Ukraine.
The opposition candidates are, by their own admission, unlikely to take many votes away from the president. Slutsky, the candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and whose lavish spending was once exposed in one of Navalny’s investigations, said he would not call on Russians to vote against Putin.
