One plus seven

The Central Election Commission on Tuesday, February 6, registered Vladimir Putin, the current president, a candidate in the March elections. The decision was supported unanimously - earlier, the CIK experts stated that the signatures handed over to the headquarters were almost ideal, only 0.39% were rejected at a permissible level of 5%.

Vladimir Putin became the first candidate-nominee who was registered in this election. Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Pavel Grudinin, who are also registered, put forward by parliamentary political parties.

Vladimir Putin at a press conference / AGN "Moscow" / Photo: Serge Kiselev

At the same time, in the signatures of Grigory Yavlinsky, the Central Election Commission found 1.07%of the marriage, in the signatures of Ksenia Sobchak - 1.33%, in the signatures of Sergey Baburin - 3.18%, in the signatures of Maxim Suraykin - 3.72%, and in Titov’s signatures - 4.35%. In other words, there are also no obstacles for their registration, which means that on March 18, eight names will be indicated in the ballots-unless, of course, one of the candidates begins to violate elected legislation or, for example, will not withdraw the elections.

According to VTsIOM, Putin has every chance of winning the first round. True, the share of his supporters among those who wish to vote gradually decreases. According to the last survey of the VTsIOM, which was carried out on January 26–28, less than 70%, 69.9%want to vote for the first time behind Putin.

In second place in terms of support was Grudinin with 7.2% of the vote, in the third - Zhirinovsky from 5.9% (in mid -January, 6.1% of respondents wanted to vote for Grudinina and Zhirinovsky). 1.2%of respondents are ready to vote for Sobchak, 0.9%for Yavlinsky, for Titov - 0.3%.

Ksenia Sobchak at the headquarters / AGN "Moscow" / Photo: Kirill Zykov

It is logical that all elections participants say that Vladimir Putin consider their main competitor to be their main competitor. Indeed, if all Putin’s opponents work to attract their supporters to sections on March 18, then they will have a minimum chance for the second round. However, in the headquarters of Vladimir Putin they are also not asleep and work for a turnout.

Actually, the turnout is now the most controversial issue for the opposition. Registered candidates, which is logical, are trying to attract their supporters to the elections. And Alexei Navalny, one of the leaders of the opposition, whom the CEC did not allow the election due to the fact that he was convicted of the “Cirovles case”, calls for a boycott of the elections so that the low turnout becomes an indicator of the attitude of citizens to illegitimate, in his opinion, elections.

A. Navalny in court / MSKAGENCY.RU

At the same time, Navalny, for example, does not deny the need to monitor the elections. So the representatives of his headquarters, together with the Civil Initiative party, from which Ksenia Sobchak is nominated, the organization of Mikhail Khodorkovsky “Open Russia” and Dmitry Gudkov, who is going to nominate in the mayors of Moscow in September 2018, jointly organize the observation of the elections. This is a fairly rare example of cooperation on the “liberal flank” of the Russian opposition - however, not one of the political forces presented on it never denied the need to control the vote.