"Legitimate" and "modest"

Editorial “Layout” November 17, 2023 |

Kremlin officials explain how Putin should win the March elections

Vladimir Putin should win the March presidential elections “modestly, without show or doubts about legitimacy.” The campaign curators from the presidential administration gave this instruction to the regional officials responsible for the “political bloc” and the chairmen of election commissions at a closed seminar at the Senezh educational center near Moscow, Vestka learned.

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These demands, according to Kremlin officials, correspond to the needs of citizens who are already “anxious” due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. Kremlin officials no longer name specific target figures .

According to two Vorstka sources familiar with what is happening in Senezh, the lecturers are “trying to convey to the regionals several main differences” between the upcoming presidential elections and the previous 2018 campaign. “The elections will be held in conditions of military operations. And that means an information war against Ukraine. Presidential elections are a very convenient moment to try to undermine the legitimacy of the current government,” the interlocutor of “Vestka” explained the “main idea” of officials from the Presidential Administration. Therefore, it was the “undoubted legitimacy of the election results” that they set as the “main target indicator” of the campaign for both the leadership of the election commissions and the regional authorities.

It was the opposition to the “information war” and the desire for “legitimacy”, as well as the “request of voters” that caused other differences between the upcoming campaign and the previous one. Unlike 2018, “there will be no show .” “Due to events related to military operations, citizens already have increased anxiety. Therefore, their requests are the modesty of the candidates and the calmness of the campaign itself. The quieter the campaign and the more obvious the result, the better,” explained one of the regionals located in Senezh to Vorstka.

In order not to worry people once again, members of election commissions and regional authorities are advised not to touch upon controversial topics related to the war . For example, the rotation of mobilized personnel and the irregularity of cash payments in some regions were banned. Also, seminar participants were advised not to mention problem areas for specific subjects at all and not to remind them of problems, says one of those present at the seminar.

The seminar started with an introductory tour at the Russia exhibition at VDNKh on November 15 and should end this weekend. The main Kremlin organizers of the campaign, head of the presidential internal policy department Andrei Yarin and head of the department for supporting the activities of the State Council Alexander Kharichev, are expected to speak to the participants of the seminar. The head of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova, has already spoken to those gathered. “No instructions were made regarding specific numbers. They showed us pictures from the preparations for the last elections, without requiring any indicators on the turnout and results of the main candidate,” said a participant in the event. Previously, “Verstka” sources claimed that the regionals would be required to provide 80% of Putin’s support with a turnout of the same 80% of voters.

The Russian presidential elections may take place on March 15–17, 2024. Vorstka’s interlocutors in the Federal Assembly say that the Federation Council will officially announce the elections at a meeting on December 13. And already on the 17th, the congress of United Russia is scheduled, where the party members, in the words of Secretary General Andrei Turchak, “plan to discuss” the presidential campaign. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and Chairman of United Russia Dmitry Medvedev, meeting with party members, said that they would have to ensure the success of “our candidate”, without mentioning who exactly they were talking about.

Meanwhile, the party itself, apparently, will not become the official subject of Vladimir Putin’s nomination: he, as in 2018, will go to the polls as a self-nominated candidate. Among the members of the initiative group, which, by law, will have to officially nominate Putin, there will be prominent “patriots” like singer Yaroslav Dronov (SHAMAN) and director Nikita Mikhalkov.

Among the parliamentary parties, only the “Socialist Revolutionaries” have decided on plans for the campaign - their leader Sergei Mironov stated at the beginning of the year that “A Just Russia - Patriots - For Truth” will support Putin and will not nominate anyone against him. Apparently, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation will nominate its leader, 78-year-old Gennady Zyuganov, and the Liberal Democratic Party will nominate party chairman Leonid Slutsky.

In both of these parties, according to Vorstka, there are groups of functionaries who do not agree with such candidates. Among the communists, the former governor of the Irkutsk region Sergei Levchenko, as well as the head of Khakassia Valentin Konovalov, are allegedly named as alternatives, and among the “Zhirinovites” are the Khabarovsk governor Mikhail Degtyarev and State Duma deputy Andrei Lugovoi. However, sources in both parties told VERSTKA that the nomination of “someone alternative to the leaders is extremely unlikely.”

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