Election update III. The presidential campaign in Russia has started

In its regular Electoral Bulletin[1], which is a compilation of news on Russian elections, Golos Movement for Defense of Voters' Rights reports on the start of the presidential campaign in Russia.

In this one-pager, REM recounts the most significant October 2023 events signaling the start of the campaign.

1. The State Duma initiated changes to legislation on presidential elections

Recent amendments to the electoral legislation on presidential elections did not come as a surprise, as the same thing was done in the run-up to September 2023 gubernatorial elections.

According to experts, the amendments passed in summer 2023 significantly worsened the situation with voters' rights protection (read more in this article). More specifically, they:

• made independent election observation as difficult as it has ever been
• complicated the control over election commissions’ activities
• reduced possibilities for candidates and parties to collect donations.

The State Duma is now planning to apply the innovations tested in the September 2023 elections to the presidential election in March 2024. Experts anticipate further tightening of the legislative framework. Quite possibly, building on previous years' experience, this will happen closer to the election date, leaving the observer community as well as Putin's competitors without a chance to analyze the changes and launch an advocacy campaign against them.

2. Pro-Kremlin sociologists formulated four alternative ‘images of future Russia’

According to “Golos” analysts, some of the regions may show unexpected results. This year governor elections are taking place in the same regions where five years ago the authorities were suddenly confronted with a protest vote. Back then, the authorities in four regions lost the gubernatorial elections. In one of these regions, the Republic of Khakassia, the incumbent Communist governor faces re-election in a tough fight against the pro-Kremlin candidate.

However, the 2023 gubernatorial election campaign will, by and large, be of little interest.

In a recent interview with Valery Fedorov, Head of the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (RPORC or VTsIOM in Russian) – a sociological agency controlled by the Presidential Administration, he argued that different groups of Russians have four different images of the future: ‘Comfortable Russia’, ‘Technological Russia’, ‘Great Russia’ and ‘Just Russia’.

The characteristics he attributed to each of these ‘images’ suggest that the election campaign will focus on the issues of domestic rather than foreign policy. This would be a logical continuation of the election slogans that featured the gubernatorial election campaign in summer 2023, when the war in Ukraine played only a minor role in the campaigns of pro-government candidates and parties (we even published an article on why the war did not become the leitmotiv of the 2023 election campaign – read it here).

3. The Russian Central Election Commission is considering ‘de-partyization of election commissions’. If put into action, this would complicate election observation even more

Member of the Russian Central Election Commission Boris Ebzeyev announced the necessity to ‘de-partyize election commissions’, implying that election commissions should be cleared out of party representatives. He justified this idea by adding that party members of election commissions allegedly face a moral dilemma: to represent their party’s interests or to defend the rule of law [the law specifically written to impede independent observation – Ed.].

Experts believe, the so-called ‘de-partyization’ is unlikely to be put into action before the presidential election. However, some changes in Russia happen quite rapidly. The retention of party commissioners in precinct election commissions remains almost the last chance for independent election observation. Consequently, the scenario of rapid ‘de-partyization’ cannot be ruled out.

[1] All Electoral Bulletin issues are available on the following website (in Russian): https://www.bulleten.org/