The Kremlin organized Russia’s weekend presidential vote to send a novel signal at home and abroad: that President Vladimir V. Putin’s support is overwhelming and unwavering, despite and even due to his war with Ukraine.
From the moment the preliminary results were first broadcast on state television late on Sunday evening, the authorities left no room for misinterpretation. Putin was said to have won over 87 percent of the vote, while his closest competitor had won just 4 percent. It had all of the hallmarks of an authoritarian Potemkin plebiscite.
The Kremlin could have felt more comfortable orchestrating such a big margin of victory because independent polls showed Putin’s support increased throughout the war in consequence of the flag rally effect and optimism concerning the Russian economy. An independent Levada Center poll said last month that 86 percent of Russians approved of Putin, the very best rating in greater than seven years.
While these numbers may suggest unwavering support for Putin and his agenda across Russia, the situation is more complex than the numbers indicate. The leader of 1 opposition research group in Moscow argued that support for Putin is definitely far more fragile than easy approval numbers suggest.
“The data we get from polls from Russia doesn’t mean what people think it means,” said Aleksei Minyailo, a Moscow opposition activist and co-founder of the Kronika research project, which has been conducting polls amongst Russians in recent months. “Because Russia is not an electoral democracy, but a military dictatorship.”
At the tip of January questionnaireThe Chronicle asked one group of Russian respondents what they wanted in key policy areas and one other group what they wanted from Putin – and documented a big difference between desires and expectations.
More than half of respondents, for instance, said they supported restoring relations with Western countries, but only 28 percent they were expected to be restored by Putin. About 58 percent expressed support for a truce with Ukraine, but only 29 percent expected Putin to comply with such a truce.
“We see that Russians want different things than what they expect from Putin,” Minyailo said. “Probably if they had any alternative, they would have made a different choice.”
However, compelling alternative options have been systematically eliminated over Putin’s nearly quarter-century in power in Russia.
Opposition representatives were exiled, imprisoned or killed. Independent news outlets were driven in another country. And a wave of repression not seen since Soviet times has led to long prison sentences for easy acts of dissent, corresponding to critical posts on social media.
Alexei A. Navalny, a Russian opposition activist who carried the hopes of many Russians for an alternative choice to Putin, died last month in mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison. After announcing victory late Sunday evening, Putin called Navalny’s death an “unfortunate event.”
The war only further closed the little space that existed for alternatives to Putin’s agenda to achieve popularity in society.
“There is a sophisticated argument as to why this war is so contrary to Russia’s interests and that this part of the spectrum is missing,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “This is happening in exile right now, and the government is putting up a lot of barriers to prevent people from enjoying this content.”
Labeling opponents of the war as saboteurs, he said Putin’s regime has managed to make “the opposition something that is really unattractive – more to outsiders than to mainstream people.”
In recent years, Russian so-called “political technologists” have allowed the looks of competition and open debate in presidential elections to spice up turnout and provides the race a patina of authenticity. But this 12 months they weren’t taking any probabilities.
Yekaterina S. Duntsova, a comparatively unknown television journalist and former deputy municipal official from a city 240 km west of Moscow, tried to run for president on an anti-war platform but was quickly disqualified. It was an identical story with Boris B. Nadezhdin, one other under-the-radar politician who collected over 100,000 signatures required to enter the race but couldn’t get on the ballot.
“They considered both of them so dangerous that they did not allow them to vote,” Minyailo said. “In my opinion, this says a lot about the nature of the regime and the steadfastness of Putin’s position. If his regime believes that allowing a provincial journalist to collect signatures poses a danger, that says a lot.”
Russian opinion polls usually show that a comparatively small a part of the Russian public are staunch supporters of Putin, and an identical group are aggressive opponents, a lot of them now abroad.
Pollsters found that almost all are relatively apathetic, passively support Putin and see no other alternative. They are particularly influenced by the narrative on state-controlled television.
“Deep wells of social inertia, apathy and atomization are the real source of Putin’s power,” Gabuev said. Many Russians, he said, would not have a classy framework for enthusiastic about certain issues because there may be no public discussion.
And those Russians who do express desires that differ from Putin’s actions aren’t necessarily willing to fight for what they need, Minyailo noted. Many Russians imagine that they’ve no influence on the course of events within the country.
But Putin’s surge in support amongst Russians within the two years since he ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is unmistakable in lots of polls.
Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, said many indicators point to consolidation around Putin.
“We monitor many metrics, not just approval ratings,” Volkov said. “We ask open questions. We ask about the economic situation. We ask about people’s moods. All these indicators point in one direction.”
Armed with an unlimited propaganda apparatus, Putin has convinced hundreds of thousands of Russians that he’s valiantly defending them against a hostile Western world that wishes to make use of Ukraine as a cudgel to destroy their people and their lifestyle.
“The state narrative has created the idea that it is Russia versus everyone else,” said Katerina Tertytchnaya, professor of comparative politics on the University of Oxford. “It’s a very important story about being under siege. The lack of an alternative is also cited as one of the reasons why people support Putin. People can’t imagine an alternative.”
It is not only Putin who seems better than alternative candidates whom the Kremlin allows to appear on state television. It also appears to be a better choice compared to almost all of its historical predecessors.
Gabuev noted that despite the war that has tarnished much of Putin’s legacy, his first two terms in office in particular have brought Russians the best mix of material prosperity and relative freedom they have ever seen, and goodwill remains for those uninterested in politics.
“It’s a paradox, it’s really the happiest life in the history of the country,” Gabuev said. “Because the combination of wealth, material well-being and freedom occurring at the same time has never been higher.”
