A Month Of Good News

Russian state television and other Kremlin-friendly media have been given strict orders to present audiences with a steady diet of good-news stories in the run-up to the March 18 presidential election, The Insider reported on February 16.

Not one state outlet appears to have reported on a January 19 incident in which a schoolchild in Buryatia attacked teachers and students with an ax and a Molotov cocktail, just as none had mentioned a few days earlier when students had a bloody knife fight in Perm.

"It all began around New Year's," one state-television journalist was quoted as saying, "the first order was not to broadcast any negative information. This was explained by saying they didn't want people to worry, that they should keep celebrating and be happy."

But later the order was said to have been extended throughout the election period.

"We were told that our audience was only interested in three things," the source said, adding:

Putin, prices, and the weather. Nothing else on the whole territory of Russia interests people. So we put together newscasts where the lead story is the unexpected snowfall in Moscow, the second piece is about how cold it is in Kazakhstan, the third is about some disaster in South America, and the last piece is about a folk festival in some Russian village. That is evening prime time.

This long report in Russian is worth reading.

CIS Observers On The Case

TASS quotes mission head and former Belarusian deputy speaker of parliament Viktar Huminski as saying CIS long-term election observers have started their work in Russia.

Moscow played the leading role in launching CIS election monitoring in 2003 against a backdrop of Russian condemnation of OSCE's frequently critical reports on Russian and other FSU votes.

Critics say the CIS has a pretty questionable record when it comes to election monitoring, including nods to deeply flawed votes like the Kyrygz election that sparked the so-called Tulip Revolution in 2005. Among other things, doubts about the CIS election-monitoring missions have arisen over the nationality of its observers -- since international monitors ideally aren't citizens of the state whose election they're observing -- but the TASS report didn't include details of the nationalities of the members of this Russia mission.

The OSCE's election monitors, for instance, after boycotting the 2008 Russian presidential election over "severe restrictions," described Putin's 2012 reelection as "clearly skewed" in his favor. And PACE warned of "serious concerns" later the same year in its summation of seven years of Russian political development.

The CIS observers, on the other hand, concluded that Russia's 2012 presidential vote was "free, open, and transparent."

Our Current Time TV colleagues invited Radio Ekho Moskvy editor in chief Aleksei Venediktov and journalist Vladimir Posner to talk about the foreign policy positions of the respective candidates. (In Russian)

Election Video Attacked As Homophobic

The Moscow Times reports on an election video that's being attacked as homophobic.

It's someone's idea of postelection hell, although we don't know whose since Moscow's Metro newspaper alerted MT to the video but didn't bother to find out who paid for it (and reportedly exaggerrated greatly its viewership number).

From MT:

The three-minute video paints a dystopian future facing those who fail to show up at the polls on March 18, with a slew of comically absurd laws. A 52-year-old man dreams that he is drafted into a multi-ethnic army, harassed by a communist son for donations and forced to limit his daily number of bathroom visits.

We previously noted this story from Daghestan, but here's more on the pro-Putin classroom campaigning in some Russian schools.

'Thank You, Putin, For Everything': Russian Kids Plump For President

Current Time TV hears from would-be voters (in Russian):

Kadyrov Calls Putin A 'Superhero' Who Should Rule Russia For Life

By RFE/RL

The Kremlin-backed head of Russia's Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, says he hopes President Vladimir Putin will remain in power for life.

The remark, not unusual for a regional leader who has frequently praised the president and called himself Putin's "foot soldier," comes weeks ahead of a March 18 presidential election that seems certain to hand Putin a new six-year term.

"I wish our president and supreme commander in chief a long life and hope that he will run our country for life," Kadyrov said in a post on Telegram on February 15.

READ MORE

Mining For Votes

Workers at the Chelyabinsk branch of the mining conglomerate Mechel (owned by billionaire Igor Zyuzin) have reportedly been given flyers with step-by-step instructions about what to do on election day.

(1) Get dressed and take your passport.

(2) Arrive at your polling station by 12:00 and take your ballot.

(3) Make your choice and vote.

(4) Call [here the name and phone number of a company representative is provided] and report that you have voted.

(5) Celebrate.

Apparently the initiative is part of a broad, national effort to boost turnout for the March 18 presidential election and to counter opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's call for a boycott. Analysts say the Kremlin fears a low turnout will undermine the legitimacy of the heavily managed election, in which incumbent President Vladimir Putin is sure to be granted a fourth term.

Walker on Putin's 'Quest For Lost Glory'

Guardian correspondent Shaun Walker has published a Russian farewell. Here are the relevant election bits from the always insightful Walker, author of The Long Hangover: Putin's New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past:

For now, political apathy reigns both among the urban elite and the broader population and Putin is sure to win next month’s election. In a remarkable sleight of hand, Putin manages to portray himself as part of the solution rather than part of the problem, even though he has been in charge for 18 years. While his approval ratings are real, much of the support is fragile and predicated on there being no alternative. On my trips around the Russian provinces, people often told me they were unhappy with their lives and despairing of corrupt officials.

And:

The opposition politician Alexei Navalny has emerged as the biggest potential threat. He is never featured on state television, he and his team deal with constant harassment, and his brother has been jailed. On trips to the Siberian hinterlands, I’ve met young, enthusiastic Navalny supporters who are slowly winning around their parents and friends to the cause. Navalny scores low ratings in the polls, but he is a wily politician and a charismatic orator and his message about official corruption in the inner circle is powerful if it gets wide exposure. Putin is on firm ground batting away challengers who want more liberal politics or rapprochement with the west; he has few answers if confronted with hard proof of the obscene wealth of his ministers and his childhood friends.

Putin will win another six-year term on 18 March, but there is no clear ideological message for his next term and nobody knows how – or if – he will relinquish power in 2024. It is hard to imagine Putin simply stepping down, but also unclear for how much longer he can keep control over his courtiers, who are engaged in vicious feuds behind the scenes for money and influence. One high-placed source, who once upon a time would lecture me that I should look at the long arc of history, that countries with the historical baggage of Russia do not democratise overnight and that Putin is moving Russia in the right direction, looked rather demoralised when I last saw him. He admitted that nobody knew what was coming next and that the medium-term prognosis was rocky. He simply shrugged and said: “Countries go through good patches and difficult patches. This is a difficult one.”

Current Time TV visited with six Russians from different walks of life to hear who they'll vote for and why. (In Russian)