Putin's Election Rivals Are Sabotaging Their Own Victory Chances

Russian President Vladimir Putin's election rivals appear to sabotaging their chances in the presidential election, which is scheduled to take place from March 15 to March 17, 2024.

This year's election candidates aren't being very aggressive in their election campaign efforts, according to Agentstvo, a Russian investigative site, which found that State Duma member Sergey Baburin and others haven't publicly promoted the location of their campaign headquarters across the country where voters can add their signature to show their support for a candidate.

Others have openly said they don't expect to win, and appear to be hampering their own victory chances before the election begins.

Putin announced in December 2023 that he will be running for re-election this year. If re-elected, it would be his fifth term as Russian president. Under constitutional changes made prior to the war in Ukraine, Putin may remain in power until 2036.

Russia's elections have historically been marred by election manipulation, ballot stuffing and forced voting. Putin's biggest critics are typically barred from running for president, while opposition figures, such as Alexei Navalny, have often been jailed or are exiled.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment by email.

This year, some of Russia's self-declared presidential election candidates include Liberal Democratic Party candidate Leonid Slutsky, who is head of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee; Nikolay Kharitonov, a member of the Communist Party; Vladislav Davankov, from the New People Party; Andrei Bogdanov, a politician who previously stood for the presidency in 2008; State Duma member Baburin; and Boris Nadezhdin, the only presidential candidate who openly opposes Putin and the war in Ukraine, and who the Kremlin dismissed on Wednesday by saying it doesn't "see him as a rival."

So far, only four candidates have been approved for the ballot—Kharitonov, Slutsky, Davankov and Baburin.

Some candidates have refused to talk about their chances in the election.

Davankov, when asked by a reporter if he is "planning to win" the election, responded by laughing, and said: "It depends on what you consider to be a victory."

Bogdanov also laughed off the possibility of winning the presidential election this year. When asked by a reporter about his prospects, he said: "Of course not. Do I look like an idiot?"

Kharitonov similarly implied that he couldn't answer the question, saying: "I can't talk this way, to win or not to win."

Agentstvo found that the majority of Russia's 2024 presidential election candidates haven't disclosed to potential voters where they can add their signatures. The investigative site found that Nadezhdin is the only one who published on his campaign website a complete list of points for the collection of signatures.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said on more than one occasion that Putin is almost guaranteed to be re-elected.

In October 2023, Peskov said that Putin will have no competition this year.

"We have repeatedly said that President Putin is definitely the number one politician and statesman in our country," Peskov told reporters. "I believe, although I hardly have the right to speak about this or that, but, breaking the rules, I can say that he has no competitors and cannot have any in Russia."

Two months earlier, he was quoted as saying that Russia's presidential election is "not really democracy" and forecast a 90 percent victory for Putin next year.

"Our presidential election is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy," Peskov told The New York Times in an article published on August 6, 2023. "Mr. Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote."

Putin has won the presidential elections four times: in 2000 he scored 51.95 percent of the vote; in 2004 71.31 percent; in 2012 63.6 percent; and in 2018 76.69 percent.

Tatiana Stanovaya, founder and CEO of political analysis firm R.Politik, said in analysis for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that Russia's election campaign is "completely under the control of the Kremlin; instead of real rivals."

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