Night democracy

The chairman of the Central Election Commission in the night handed the president a scroll with the results of the elections before last year. Everything about this message is great

You can’t even come up with such a metaphor on purpose. Everything should be natural here. Chairman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova presented President Putin with a scroll with the results of the 2024 elections.

Against the backdrop of an Internet shutdown, the fight against social networks and periodically falling resources from the white and other lists, it is a scroll from the 16th century that seems to be the best way to transmit information.

And at the same time, it is also a relevant carrier, since the country is looking deeper and deeper into history for its future, finding spiritual, moral and political guidelines in the depths of centuries. Again, using a scroll to inform about the results of the 2024 elections, when 2026 is in full swing, this also fits well with the style. What's the hurry? The President still has to rule and rule. And Ella Alexandrovna was recently re-elected for a third term - this is a record for the post of head of the Central Election Commission. You can now slowly prepare parchment or buffalo skin to make the next scroll for the upcoming elections.

Looking at the footage of the meeting between Putin and Pamfilova at the Central Election Commission, I thought: I wonder if they ever discussed the 2000 elections among themselves? Those in which Putin won for the first time, gaining a modest 52% and passing on the brink of the second round. But part of the votes was then taken away from him by the candidate who took seventh place. And this candidate was Ella Alexandrovna with 1.01% - 758,966 votes. Pamfilova made no further claims to the Kremlin. Apparently, she’s better at organizing the process than participating—for nothing, perhaps, not only Putin, but she’s also breaking records in terms of deadlines?

The meeting at the CEC office took place late in the evening, when the working day was long over. But on the occasion of the visit of the head of state, all members of the election commission gathered at the electoral department, and one must think that they were not the only ones. Wednesday is a little Friday, but for the CEC employees this little Friday ended, apparently, when Thursday arrived.

But no one has seen anything urgent in this for a long time. Footage of Putin’s motorcade entering the Kremlin even at night is no longer exclusive, and no one suggests that something went wrong and the situation requires urgent intervention from the president (and maybe even the Supreme Commander-in-Chief). Vladimir Vladimirovich likes to work in the evenings and at night, that’s his biorhythm, and it doesn’t matter what biorhythm you have - be ready at any time of the day and be able to suppress a yawn and put matches in your eyes if the interests of the business require it. This is our “night management”.

Putin’s meeting at the Central Election Commission symbolically echoed the meeting with Pashinyan. Who, without pressure and not always quickly choosing Russian words, said the main thing: “There are those who think that there is too much democracy in Armenia, but for us this is a matter of principle. Our social networks are 100% free, there are no restrictions at all.” In addition, democratic elections are taking place in the country. Putin did not answer the Armenian leader anything about social networks. And he said about the elections while visiting Pamfilova: “...competitive, democratic elections are a mandatory, irreplaceable, constitutional tool for the formation of a strong, capable government.”

Who could argue with that? True, paradoxically, many of those who spoke exactly the same words later ended up in prison, in exile, and received the stigma of “foreign agents” or punishment for collaborating with undesirable organizations. Apparently, Putin had these people in mind when he promised to “suppress any attempts to use elections to destabilize society.”

Our elections must be held clearly, on time, calmly, stably and with a clear result in advance - that is why they are useful. And there are no surprises hidden for a long time.

The voting process in the country resembles the process of feeding water into a pipe or electricity into wires. There should be no improvisation in it. I turned on the switch - the light came on, opened the tap - water flowed.

If you cast a vote, the correct candidate wins. There is no other way. So suddenly water will flow through the wires, and current will flow from the tap. Why is this necessary?

However, the authorities invariably pay increased attention to elections, as if actually fearing that at some point the results of the expression of will will not live up to expectations. And I must say that lately they themselves have been making a lot of efforts so that the outcome ceases to be obvious. Having increased utilities and taxes, cut off the Internet and burned livestock, it is much more difficult to count on thunderous applause and a forest of hands in a burst of approval. If in the time remaining until September we add something similar to the list of innovations, then the numbers in Ella Alexandrovna’s new scroll will be noticeably different from those that the head of state expects to see there.

The meeting between Putin and Pamfilova, of course, would not have attracted such attention, even despite the late hour. And even the scroll with the results of the vote before last year was more useful for memes than for political analysis. But there was one really important moment at this meeting. These are the words of Ella Alexandrovna when she said something that is not customary to talk about now: “1,197 of our colleagues, members of election commissions at all levels, went to the SVO. And mostly they left as volunteers. Unfortunately, 109 of them died. We honor their memory and do not leave their families unattended.”

109 out of 1197 is 9.1%...