Russia goes to elections with only one candidate

CAIRO - 19 October 2023: Recent events in Russia have led to a rather noticeable centralization of the political life of this country. The elections of governors (heads of regions) and regional parliaments have just ended in September of this year, which showed an extremely high level of support for the ruling United Russia party. Its positions today are extremely difficult to challenge and they are connected not only directly with the activities of this political force, but with the fact that it is directly associated with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

By the way, he will also have to participate in the elections in March next year. However, there is clearly no intrigue in this election campaign. At the moment, in the Russian political field, Vladimir Putin has clearly become the only candidate in the sense that practically no one can challenge him. For the most part, this is due to two things: firstly, during the war in Ukraine Putin became a kind of guarantor of victory for a large part of Russian society. And secondly, the government headed by him managed to keep the socio-economic situation in the country under control.

In fact, many people in the world believed that the financial and economic sanctions imposed on Russia would quickly destroy its economy and greatly worsen the living standards of Russian citizens. In this case, they could decide to protest and demand Putin’s departure from politics. In fact, everything happened exactly the opposite: the Russian economy did not fall into recession and it is even showing some growth. The vast majority of Russians simply do not feel the effect of sanctions, which practically guarantees Putin strong electoral support.

It is interesting that the same conclusion about significant support for Putin by Russian citizens is made by two Russian sociological centers at once - the state Russian Public Opinion Research Center and the private Public Opinion Foundation. Their research agrees on one thing: if Vladimir Putin announces his desire to run for another presidential term in December of this year, no one will be able to challenge him.

At the parliamentary level, everything also looks pretty rosy for Putin. His United Russia party firmly controls the State Duma (the lower house of parliament) and it has managed to build constructive relationships with other parties - the communist, liberal democratic, socialist, and the recently created party of entrepreneurs called New People. At the moment, the parliamentary process in Russia is quite predictable and no political surprises are expected.

Such a strong political structure, which is built in Russia around the figure of Vladimir Putin, among other things, is also a certain insurance against attempts to interfere in the Russian electoral process by any foreign forces. Given the presence of a popular national leader and a balanced political system in the country, this is practically impossible. Therefore, Putin's victory in March and his inauguration as president of Russia is almost inevitable.

Any change in the political situation can only be expected after 2030. However, modern processes in world politics are so dynamic that it is quite difficult to make any forecasts for such a long-term period. As a result of amendments to the Russian Constitution adopted in 2020, Vladimir Putin has the right to run for two more presidential terms and even in 2030 may compete for the last time for the post of head of state. However, it is difficult to predict whether he will do this.