Election update VII. The campaign results: Russian authorities make the election run dry

The Movement in Defence of Voter’s Rights ‘Golos’ has published an analytical report titled “Agitation and Administrative Mobilisation in Russia's 2024 Presidential Elections”. REM reports on its key takeaways.

SUMMARY

The presidential campaign of 2024 is taking place against a negative backdrop for the Russian authorities. Less than a year ago, the Kremlin demonstrated blatant weakness during an attempted state coup. The subsequent removal of its instigator, Yevgeny Prigozhin, couldn’t demonstrate the strength of the Kremlin; rather, it simply reaffirmed that Putin fails to keep his word or honor agreements. The war in Ukraine does not follow the scenario of Russian military leaders, there are no major victories on the front, while the human, material and symbolic losses are very significant. The protests of wives and mothers of drafted soldiers are growing, protests continue in Bashkortostan and a number of other regions. Russian society demonstrates support for the nomination of "peaceful" presidential candidates, Ekaterina Duntsova and Boris Nadezhdin. The refusal to register them also demonstrates the Kremlin's reluctance to provide even potential opportunities to express anti-war ideas during the presidential campaign. The funeral of Alexei Navalny also demonstrated (and continues to demonstrate) support for Navalny's anti-corruption and anti-Putin ideas in major Russian cities.

As a result, we witnessed the most "dried up" campaign possible. A minimal number of candidates appeared on the ballot. Propagandist media restricted citizens' access to information about the campaign, candidates, and their platforms to the maximum extent. The candidates themselves also try to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Meanwhile, public opinion polls published by pro-government sociological services show unprecedented expectations of voter turnout and the percentage of support for the "main" candidate. Presumably, the authorities aim to meet the previously stated KPIs (80% for Putin with an 80% turnout) through administrative compulsion of dependent voters to participate, including the use of electronic voting systems where they are available.

MAIN CONCLUSIONS

1. The 2024 campaign is the most vacuous in the entire history of presidential elections in Russia. Candidates do not even try to imitate genuine interest to participate in the elections and fight for votes. Instead, they are trying not to draw undue attention to themselves. Candidates have refrained from conducting public campaigns to attract observers. The passivity of candidates is particularly evident at the regional level.

2. Even the campaign of Vladimir Putin (this being his fifth election) has the same feature as other candidates' campaigns—it is less active and less visible than all previous times. The amount of official campaigning by the incumbent is significantly lower, there is no comprehensive program (replaced by the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, where Putin simply promised a lot of money for everything without specifying where it would come from). Instead of Putin, government bodies, budgetary organizations of different levels, as well as volunteer, student, and other mass organizations are calling to vote for the current president. This contradicts the current legislation, which requires any such activity by legal entities to be paid for from the election fund, while state and municipal resources are not supposed to be spent on supporting a particular candidate.

3. The situation is further aggravated by the behavior of state-owned media, which have effectively abandoned their social function of providing objective and comprehensive information to citizens and creating conditions for public political discussion. The presidential election campaign of 2024 is characterized by a blatant "drying up" of the information field by major TV broadcasters. Compared to 2018, the airtime devoted to the elections in the news programs of federal TV channels decreased by more than 1.6 times. In the twelfth week of the campaign (from February 26 to March 3, 2024), the elections were covered in less than half of the news broadcasts. Moreover, more than half of the time devoted to the elections was spent on discussing the start of early voting in remote areas, where a very small fraction of Russian voters resides.

4. Long-term observers of Golos note that this campaign is the most information-scarce campaign ever observed, both in terms of regional and independent media. The remaining independent media in Russia are far from trying to make up for the situation, probably fearing to interfere in the presidential campaign. If not for the poster campaign by the CEC and electoral commissions, the presidential election campaign would be visually almost unnoticed. Moreover, the information provided by the CEC of Russia is also quite scarce.

5. The televised debates didn't really help adding sparkle to the campaign. Their format, timing and membership suggest that they are also intended to simulate discussion. The incumbent president refused to participate, while the other candidates weren't always there in person, sending their representatives on air or even just skipping the free airtime altogether. The last TV debates were held on March 7—just 10 days before the voting day.

6. This creates a situation of total inequality of candidates in the information field. Throughout the entire campaign, Vladimir Putin was mentioned in the news broadcasts of federal TV channels many times more often than any of the three candidates from parliamentary parties. The final figures are as follows: Vladimir Putin (candidate) - 3,560 mentions, Nikolai Kharitonov - 1,124, Leonid Slutsky - 1,041, Vladislav Davankov - 965. In other words, Vladimir Putin as a candidate was mentioned more often than all the other candidates combined.

7. At the same time, the media (as well as public and local authorities) attempt to substitute information about the elections with coverage of Vladimir Putin's daily activities as head of state. Throughout the entire election campaign, coverage of President Putin's activities received 5-10 times more airtime than the activities of all candidates combined, including Putin as a candidate. Combined with mentions as head of state, candidate Vladimir Putin received 21,865 mentions from the start of the campaign until March 10th, compared to 3,130 mentions of the other three contestants in the election race—almost seven times more. It is worth noting that stories about the elections were usually very scarce, while stories about the activities of the President, on the contrary, were too detailed. Consequently, the difference in airtime minutes would be even greater.

8. Thus, with a voter turnout plan of around 80% (known from the media), the main stake is made on the administrative drive of controlled voters, whose loyalty to the authorities is presumably assured. The electoral campaign again has a pronounced administrative-mobilization character. This time, its scale has noticeably increased, organizational priorities have shifted, while the mobilisation activities themselves have become more overt and straightforward. While in 2018 various "near-electoral creativity" was widespread (creative contests for young people, school events on voting day, surveys on public amenities, quasi-referendums, selfie contests, etc.), in 2024, direct administrative pressure and outright voter bribery through prize lotteries and quizzes prevail. Another important difference from the 2018 campaign is that with the introduction of multi-day and remote voting, the main mobilization efforts are aimed at forcing voting on a working day, Friday 15 March. Corporate mobilization is conducted on a large scale not only in state-owned enterprises but also in private companies unrelated to the state. In 2024, techniques and methods of controlling voter turnout are tightened. Voters are required either to vote in the presence of monitoring officials or to provide documentary evidence of their voting (photos, screenshots, calls, SMS messages).

Thus, the conducted campaign makes it impossible to form and express the free will of voters. According to experts from Golos, the 2024 elections may provide a lot of information to analyze the political situation in the country, but they will fail to fulfill their main function—to provide an understanding of the real sentiments of citizens, and will not allow them to make their own decisions about the future of their country.