Center for Eastern Studies' Take On Navalny 'Strike' Rallies
More than 380 people were detained during the January 28 "voter strike" rallies across Russia organized by opposition activist Aleksei Navalny.
But the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies (OSW) argues that the response by authorities was relatively mild, reflecting what OSW sees as the Kremlin's reluctance to inflame the situation ahead of the presidential poll.
Final Candidate List Announced
Russia's Central Election Commission Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova has announced in a live broadcast that officials have registered the last two of eight candidates to take part in the March 18 presidential election.
TV personality Ksenia Sobchak of the Civil Initiative party and the leader of the Communists Of Russia Party, Maksim Suraikin, were formally cleared today, the last day for registration.
The other six candidates are: three-term President Vladimir Putin; Boris Titov of the Party of Growth; Sergei Baburin of the Russian All-People Union Party; Grigory Yavlinsky of Yabloko; Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia; and Communist Party Of Russia nominee Pavel Grudinin.
'Crimea Is Fundamental' For Putin
Aleksei Venediktov, chief editor of independent radio station Echo Moskvy, says he believes Kommersant was right when it reported (see below note, February 7) that Putin may cast his vote in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
"I believe this actually is the case, because it seems to me that what is important for Putin is not the count in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lipetsk, or Chechnya, but the count in Crimea and in Sevastopol," Venediktov said. "In fact, for him, this is a second referendum [after the disputed 2014 referendum in occupied Crimea]. The question is not about the center [of Russia], the question is: How many of those 2 million" -- a reference to the number of voters there -- "will come, and will more cast their vote than in 2014 during its accession [annexation] to Russia, or will there be fewer and by how much? For him, this is fundamental. Crimea is fundamental for him."
Opposition leader Aleksei Navalny, who has called on Russians to boycott the election after he was barred from running, has said the ballot is further proof the election is rigged in favor of incumbent Putin.
Putin's name is smack-dab in the middle of the sheet, accompanied by the briefest biography/description of all the candidates, setting him apart.
- By Mike Eckel
Pskov Communists Claim Police Raid On Grudinin Offices
The Communist Party branch in the northwest region of Pskov says police raided the local headquarters of the party’s presidential candidate, Pavel Grudinin.
The party said eight officers notified campaign workers that they were responding to complaints that there were banned copies of a newspaper or leaflet. According to a statement posted on the local party’s page on the social network VK, "it’s worth nothing that the law enforcement officers were particularly interested in a caricature...."
No banned leaflets were found, the party said.
Candidate List Reflects 'Popular Demand But Not...Entirely Adequate'
Political scientist Golosov assesses the combination of candidates on offer:
"The list of presidential candidates was formed on the basis of public-opinion polls. That is, so that there would be a communist, democrats, and so on. Of course, there had to be Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is difficult to define ideologically, but who evokes sympathy personally from his supporters. In this sense, the list of candidates is completely representative. It is a different matter that the communist is not really a communist and the democrats are not entirely democrats (some of them aren't democrats at all), and that even Zhirinovsky has always been notorious for the artificiality of much of his behavior. So the list reflects some type of popular demand -- but not in an entirely adequate way."
Boris Titov's Strange Campaign
The presidential candidacy of Boris Titov, the Kremlin's commissioner for entrepreneurs' rights, is widely viewed as yet another fake contender designed to give the race an aura of competitiveness. The Spectator has a piece profiling Titov and looking at his candidacy.
And in her column for Republic.ru, political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya takes a skeptical look at a proposal Titov recently floated to encourage exiled businessmen to return to Russia in exchange for amnesty.