According to the Constitution of the Russian Confederation, Russia is a “democratic federative law-governed state with a republican form of government.” Although Russia has changed greatly since the destructuring of the USSR, many critics call into question the legitimacy of Russia’s claims to democracy.
Russia recently held its eighth presidential election on March 17th earlier this year, in which President Vladimir Putin was reelected for his fifth 6-year term. According to Russia’s Central Election Commission, Putin won 87.29% of the vote. Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jung Un voiced their congratulations to Putin along with many other presidents and leaders of Russian-allied countries congratulated Putin. Opposing countries, however, viewed the election as predetermined and corrupt. The Foreign Minister of Lithuania Gabrielius Landsbergis voiced his disapproval, claiming the vote “definitely cannot be called [an] election.” Landsbergis says the vote was meant to merely “resemble elections,” a “reappointment… lacking any legitimacy.”
Leading up to the election, the Kremlin suppressed and jailed potential candidates, while oppressing protests and seeding misinformation. Promising opposition leader Alexei Navalny was a lawyer and anti-corruption activist. Navalny opposed the corruption of the Kremlin and wished to combat it, accumulating massive support from reformers and those acknowledging a problem in Russia’s government. As Navalny’s political career progressed, the Russian government attempted numerous times to discourage and stifle him. The Kremlin charged the growing leader in 2012 with embezzlement and fraud, making Navalny unable to run for president in 2016. Later, in 2020, Navalny grew ill during a flight to Siberia, and the plane emergency landed in Omsk. After Navalny’s wife managed to transfer him to a German hospital, despite strong resistance from Russian officials, German doctors identified a “Soviet-era nerve agent” in his system.
Then, two just two months prior to polling, Navalny died after reportedly feeling “unwell after a walk, almost immediately losing consciousness,” according to the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. Officials claim “all necessary resuscitation measures were carried out.” Western critics claim this underscores the longstanding political corruption that secures Putin in a position of power. Navalny was one of many other threats to the Russian government that have mysteriously died or been jailed on convenient charges.
Furthermore, the Russian political system actively censors foreign news, entertainment, and ideas. The Kremlin isolates its civilians, and consequently, Putin holds a positive public image. Historians term this artificial praise a “cult of personality,” in which authoritarians utilize media to glorify themselves; a common motif for often destructive Communist leaders like Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin. The relatively small portion of Russian civilians who acknowledge the state’s corruption endeavored to protest the election; people poured ink into ballot boxes and started fires with Molotov cocktails. Moreover, a “noon against Putin” movement occurred–a large outpour of voters voted against the powerful leader. Others, in an act of defiance and expecting Putin’s landslide victory, voted for the late Alexei Navalny.