Candidates, voters, calendar… How the Russian presidential elections are held

Non-existent intrigue. The Russian presidential election will take place from Friday, March 15th to Sunday, and it will come as no surprise that the almighty Vladimir Putin will win his fifth term at the head of the Russian Federation, his third in a row.

This is a majority vote in two rounds, like in France. If one of the candidates wins with an absolute majority of votes in the first round, he is elected directly and there is no second round. In the event that Vladimir Putin unexpectedly does not win this weekend’s election, a second round is scheduled for April 7. He was re-elected in 2018 with 77.5% of the vote.

Mandate formed by Vladimir Putin

If Vladimir Putin can remain in the Kremlin for so long, it is also because he changed the Russian Constitution accordingly to allow himself to rule the country unchallenged. Through a major constitutional overhaul launched in 2020 and voted for in a referendum (78.6%), he limited the number of presidential mandates for any Russian citizen to two. But from 2024 and without taking into account previous mandates. Boulevard so that he remains at the head of the country until 2036, when he turns 84 years old.

In addition, Vladimir Putin also tightened the selection conditions: to run for office, you must be at least 35 years old, have lived in Russia for at least 25 years and have never had another citizenship or residence permit in a foreign country. This latest condition, implemented following the 2020 constitutional reform, de facto excludes opponents in exile in neighboring countries.

Candidates are more decorative than sharp

To legitimize the rigged vote, Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party continue to face other candidates who they know are supporters of the current government. Every election, for example, features a communist candidate, a relic of the Soviet era, and a candidate from the LDPR, a liberal and nationalist right-wing party. This year, seventy-year-old Nikolai Kharitonov and fifty-year-old Leonid Slutsky, respectively, are competing in the race.

Along with them there is a fourth candidate – Vladislav Davankov. He is 39 years old, a deputy from the liberal New People party and vice-president of the Duma. His party, which brings together youth and business leaders, is regularly accused of being a puppet opposition to the Russian president, especially as it takes measures in line with the United Russia party.

Your great incentive to vote

Just over 114 million Russians are registered on the voter list and are expected to vote. “Remote” voting began on February 25 and ended this Thursday, March 14. Its main goal was to make voting easier for residents of the most remote regions of Russia, as well as residents of the four annexed regions of Ukraine, for which “mobile polling stations” have been installed near their homes.

And even if many Russians do not vote (32% abstained in 2018), Putin is doing everything to attract them to the polls: “He wants to convince Russians that they live in a democracy. However, in a democracy we go to vote. He monitors the level of participation. The pressure is not only on voters, but also on state-owned companies, which ask their employees to go and vote accompanied by 5-10 people,” Carole Grimaud, a lecturer at the University of Montpellier and an expert on Russian geopolitics, explains to Le Parisien. Enough to dissuade people from checking any name other than Putin on the ballot.