In mid-March, Vladimir Putin will be re-elected president again. There is no doubt that he will win the elections. However, the voting process itself is necessary to ensure the legitimacy of Vladimir Vladimirovich and increase the level of support among the population. Against the background of the death of Alexei Navalny and the withdrawal of Boris Nadezhdin from the election race, we talked with people in the Kremlin and those who ensure the elections. Combining the opinions of our interlocutors, we can state that there are three main fears in the AP.
The first fear is that the organizers will not be able to ensure a result of 87%. This is exactly the figure that appears in internal documents.
The second fear is that the election race will bring someone with an anti-war or neutral agenda into the political arena. It was for this reason that Nadezhdin was banned from being a candidate, and for the same reason Abramovich was dissuaded .
The third fear is that ordinary Russians will perceive this term as Putin's last, and will demand a lot from him. In particular, we are talking about problems in the regions, whose authorities are often distinguished by all the known “excesses on the ground.” There are fears in the AP that the movement of mobilized wives is only the first sign; then a conditional “movement of engineers’ wives” may appear, who will demand apartments or higher salaries for their husbands. It is for this reason that the election campaign is proceeding extremely quietly, and protest actions have begun to be dealt with more harshly. However, as you understand, any destabilization during a war does not benefit the state. Therefore, you need to be more careful with protests.
At the same time, in general, the Kremlin does not have any global problems, because ordinary Russians do not see an alternative to Vladimir Putin. And the year 2030, when it will be necessary to go to the sites again, is still very far away.
“All parties, except the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, have quite thoroughly understood the essence of remote electronic voting,” said the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova.
Let us recall that only representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation consistently and reasonably oppose the use of DEG in elections. Therefore, Pamfilova’s words that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation are poorly versed in DEG sound at least strange.
Serious problems arose in the presidential elections in the new regions of Russia.
More than 25% of residents of the new regions of our country (DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions) do not want to take part in the presidential elections. This is evidenced by the results of a closed sociological study that we have at our disposal.
“In new regions there are many different fears. We don't yet know what to do with them, but they also influence reluctance to vote,” noted a representative of Sergei Kiriyenko’s team, who showed us the results of the survey.
In particular, more than 80% of those who do not want to participate in the elections fear a further deterioration of the socio-economic situation in their region. Also among the fears are the prolongation of active hostilities (mentioned by 76% of respondents ), disbelief that “Russia will change something for the better” ( 62% ), fears about a new wave of mobilization ( 51% ). They are especially afraid of mobilization in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, since “there is a threat that it will take place here thoughtlessly, following the example of the DPR and LPR in 2022, and many mobilized will die or be seriously injured.”
The election process is also influenced by the criminal activities of saboteurs in new regions. We wrote about individual cases and consequences of enemy sabotage. In general, according to the statistics provided to us by the FSB, in the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, DPR and LPR over the past month, 26 people who have one way or another to do with the organization of the elections were killed or died under mysterious circumstances. “People are afraid and refuse to work in the elections,” a source in the Kremlin complained about this.
“The “waiters” who are still waiting for the Ukrainian army are also in the way; there are many of them here. I won't say what percentage, but it's a lot. We will, of course, make the necessary result. But Vladimir Vladimirovich will definitely ask how many people actually voted for him. And we don't yet know how to answer this question,” another AP source close to Kiriyenko honestly admitted.