SEVEN AGAINST ONE

None of the candidates can be considered a serious rival to the incumbent Russian president Vladimir Putin and he will certainly be re-elected. Therefore, the upcoming election is more interesting as a milestone or a manifestation of social, political, and economic situation in Russia, as well as the geopolitical situation beyond it. On the other hand, this will be a sort of anchor point to count down Putin's fourth term as a president, and hence a chance to ponder over the future of Russia and Putin himself after 2024.

Millionaire communist and TV host

Only eight (including the incumbent president) of a record 64 potential candidates have been registered for the presidential race. Thus, the final list of candidates includes Sergey Baburin of the national conservative Russian All-People's Union, a politician popular in the 1990s, former deputy of the State Duma, one of the organizers of the Russian Marshes, and a Slavophile; Maxim Suraykin of the Communists of Russia (the spoiler of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, CPRF), also known as Comrade Maxim; Boris Titov of the Party of Growth, who is also the Presidential Commissioner for Entrepreneurs’ Rights and the owner of the Abrau-Durso wine company; Pavel Grudinin of CPRF, the Director of the Lenin State Farm, and ‘rouble millionaire’; Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (the 2018 race will be his sixth and it is difficult to add anything more to his profile); TV anchor Ksenia Sobchak of the Civil Initiative; and Grigory Yavlinsky, yet another political star of the 90s, the candidate of Yabloko Party (three-times presidential candidate: 1996 (7.34%), 2000 (5.8%), presently less than 1%).

Undoubtedly, the “red oligarch” Pavel Grudinin (57) is a dark horse of the 2018 election campaign. The communists have unexpectedly nominated him instead of the all-time leader of CPRF Gennady Zyuganov (73). According to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM), Grudinin ranks the second after Putin in the election race. He has an ingenious and in some ways contradictory personality: he sympathizes with Stalin (and even has a moustache in the style of Stalin) and the Scandinavian countries, and his 2,000-hectare farm, with 4 billion roubles in turnover last year, is one of the most famous strawberry producers in the country. Almost ideal living conditions at the farm nicknamed Little Switzerland fascinate the voters and one can hope that Grudinin will imparadise the huge Russia the same way as he did at the farm. By the way, Grudinin can hardly be considered a red-hot communist, as he has been a member of the ruling United Russia Party until 2010, and was one of the proxies for the then presidential candidate Putin in 2000. The Russian media contains a bunch of compromising material on Grudinin concerning his foreign accounts, financial frauds, vacations abroad, illegal sale of land plots, and so on. But, apparently, his sympathisers do not care about these details.

It is impossible to ignore the most scandalous and the most discussed presidential candidate in social networks. Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Vladimir Putin’s former boss, the late governor of St. Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, is campaigning in the same style as she used to host the Russian reality shows Dom-2 (House-2) and Posledniy geroy (the Last Hero), when you do not really want to watch them, but you have to admit that they have a certain audience. In her speeches, Ksenia sharply expresses her views on the most relevant issues of Russian reality, i.e. from corruption and the Crimea to sexual minorities and the Russian Orthodox Church, whereas for the majority of her opponents, Sobchak is ‘the Kremlin puppet’. They believe that the journalist is running for presidency with the approval of and on orders from Putin, who is trying to cancel out the excess potential of possible public discontent and to divert attention from Alexei Navalny through Sobchak.

Navalny is another person involved in the 2018 presidential election, often mentioned in media and social networks, even though he could not run for presidency due to his two probationary sentences (five years each) for the affairs of Kirovles and Yves Rocher. Furthermore, he is suspected of beating police officers during an unauthorized protest on Tverskaya Street on January 28. Nevertheless, Navalny has managed to conduct his election campaign and even created election headquarters in the regions. He is now calling on his supporters, made up mostly of young nihilist people communicating through the Internet, to boycott the upcoming election. In fact, Navalny is unable to mobilise a sufficient number of people as his rating hardly reaches 1% according to VTsIOM, and therefore his statements sound increasingly populist. The foreign media have broadly promoted him to the extent that many Russians now consider Navalny a foreign agent. Either way, his non-admission to the election does not mean his farewell to politics at all.

So, we have seven presidential candidates who will fight each other for approximately 30% of the votes at best. Obviously, Putin does not need to worry about them, even combined. Moreover, the candidates will most likely vote against each other. For instance, Yavlinsky may draw the votes from Sobchak, Baburin from Grudinin and Zhirinovsky, Titov from Zhirinovsky, and so on.

Putin is just doing his job

According to a standalone article by BBC, President Putin’s name is the most notable in the centre of a draft ballot paper, as candidates are listed in alphabetical order and the accompanying information about him is the shortest - just ‘the President of the Russian Federation’. Putin does not belong to any party and will take advantage of his right of self-promotion. He has decided not to be nominated by the ruling United Russia Party, and this was perhaps the only thing that surprised his voters. Otherwise, the situation continues to remain as before, as Putin does not conduct an election campaign. Rather, he continues his functions as the president, and often moves around the country mainly visiting industrial enterprises, as if ‘discreetly’ promising his voters the stability and close attention to the national economy.

Indeed, the critics believe that one of the real weaknesses of Putin is the Russian economy, which is stagnating amidst the growing poverty rate and the falling wages, as reported by the Western and Russian opposition media. Meanwhile, the dependence on oil and gas does not decrease, and the government does not have a clear economic plan and a vision for the future. On the other hand, it has been a while since the stunning fall in oil prices and the introduction of the first sanctions, but Russia is still standing fast, and Putin is going for a new term. Despite tough circumstances, the state budget is almost balanced, GDP is expected to grow, and more young and talented liberal technocrats are allowed access to administration. We can discuss the state of the Russian economy for a long time, but one thing is certain: the coming years will become crucial for both the economy and the country as a whole.

Putin's popularity in Russia also depends heavily on country's international position. Even his enemies acknowledge that the current head of the Kremlin is an undoubted master in this area. It would seem that Putin has been plagued by explicit ‘external’ setbacks such as the shotdown of a Russian military aircraft in Syria on February 3, publication of the infamous ‘Kremlin list’, barring of the Russian team from the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, and even the launch of SpaceX Falcon Heavy just a few weeks before the election. On the contrary, these failures are fuelling the patriotic spirit of Russians, who for the most part associate it with Putin’s personality. Not only is the rigid foreign policy environment unthreatening to Putin's re-election, but rather contributes to the growth of his support.

Vladimir Putin, who has been the president three times since 2000 and the prime minister from 2008 to 2012, is running for his fourth term in the Kremlin. According to various opinion polls (VTsIOM et al.), his public rating reaches more than 70 percent (2000 - 53%, 2004 - 71.31%, 2012 - 63.6%). Since he does not have extremely dangerous rivals, the observers believe that the authorities are more concerned about the voter turnout. Especially considering the elections to the State Duma in September 2016, when the turnout was very low reaching less than 48%, apathetic behaviour of the voters and the opposition calls to boycott the election. However, according to the VTsIOM poll conducted on Jan 29-Feb 4, 74% of Russians are likely to take part in the election. Only 0.6% is going to participate just to spoil the ballot papers.

Yet the Russian and foreign media are pondering the outcome of the next election scheduled on 2024, when Putin turns 72 years old and may not stay in the office any more, according to the Russian Constitution. Is Putin going to set up a system by that time that will allow him to stay on top of things in the country, or are we going to see new political stars in the Russian political space? One thing is certain though – the old new president of Russia will take a maximum advantage of the available six years.