In 2024, the United States is engaged in **, and Russia is the same.
It's just that, compared with the United States, Russia is much calmer, whether it is ** or civilian. Even the Western forces did not expect much suspense and "big melons" to appear.
Of course, at the beginning, there were two "dark horses" - one was named Ekaterina Duntsova, who claimed to be an independent candidate;
The other is Boris Najzhdin, a former State Duma deputy from the Citizens' Initiative Party.
I'll talk about what an "independent candidate" means later. This time, Putin also used the identity of an "independent candidate", not only representing the United Russia party (currently the largest party in the Duma).
The "Citizens' Initiative Party" belongs to a relatively small party in Russia, and does not even occupy a seat in the Dumalia.
But whether it is Ekaterina Duntsova or Boris Nadezhdin, the two of them have similar ideas, basically - "comprehensive transformation" of Russia according to the wishes of the West.
Typical is a firm, almost unconditional anti-war stance.
It's just that if a politician's position is to unconditionally end the war as soon as possible. Well, we can only understand it as a "call for surrender".
After all, there's nothing more efficient than doing it.
Then, the two men were directly disqualified from running for election by the Election Commission of the Russian Federation on the grounds that "there were a large number of irregularities and errors in the election documents".
The page of the pro-Western faction was easily turned in this way.
In the end, the Election Commission of the Russian Federation finalized 4 qualified candidates after a rigorous review of materials - the current ** Vladimir Putin;
Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party Leonid Slutsky;
Leonid Slutsky.
Nikolai Haritonov (Communist Party of Russia);
Chairman of the Russian New People's Party, Vladislav Davankov.
The latter three are all current deputies to the State Duma of the Russian Federation and have PhDs.
Moreover, these three candidates are all on the West's sanctions list against Russia.
Obviously, this also seems to show from another angle that they are consistent with Putin and the Russian Federation in the general direction of Russia's domestic and foreign affairs.
Even so, it is necessary to give a brief description of the form of government with "Russian characteristics" and the general situation of the parties to which the three candidates belong.
The Russian Federation is divided into two modules – direct elections and State Duma (parliamentary) elections.
Among them, ** is directly elected by the Russian referendum;
The State Duma elections, on the other hand, are based on party affiliation and elect deputies.
The operation is similar to that of the United States, the election of ** and the election of Duma deputies are separated by years; Moreover, since 2012, when the Russian constitution was amended, the term of office was changed to 6 years, but the Duma is still elected once every 5 years.
The current State Duma of the Russian Federation was elected in 2021. Of the total 450 seats, Putin's ruling party, United Russia, won 324 seats, making it the largest party in the State Duma.
The logo of United Russia is a polar bear.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation won 57 seats, still ranking second in 10,000 years;
The Just Russia - Patriots for Truth coalition and the Russian Liberal Democratic Party won 27 and 21 seats, respectively; For the first time, the People's Party entered the State Duma and received 13 seats. The remaining eight seats were allocated to three coalition delegates and five independents.
The State Duma is in session.
For a long time, the United Russia party had an absolute advantage in the State Duma. This proportion of seats, under the Western electoral system, is almost unimaginable.
Therefore, although on the surface, Russia's electoral system is quite similar to the electoral system of the United States, it is still very "Russian characteristics" compared with the latter.
However, for the sake of "political correctness", the deputy chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation is generally held by a representative of a non-ruling party. For example, the deputy chairman of the current State Duma is Davankov (pictured below) from the "Russian New People's Party". He is also one of the candidates for the 2024 Russian Federation.
From the name of the "Russian New People's Party", we can also see that the basic plate of this party is a relatively young group. In Russia, the New People's Party is a right-wing party that is mainly active in the more economically developed urban areas of the central and western regions of Russia.
Then let's look at the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
It is Russia's third-largest party and widely recognized as Russia's most right-wing party, with a tougher and more radical foreign outreach than Putin's United Russia party.
Interestingly, although it is called "liberal democracy", it sneers at the "liberal democracy" that the West has created. Moreover, the party is supported by a large number of "Imperial Russophobia" factions, who advocate that the contemporary Russian Federation should restore the glory of the "Third Rome" of Tsarist Russia.
The party chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, one of the candidates for this time - Slutsky. Western sanctions against him began as early as the outbreak of the Crimean crisis in 2014, and it has entered its tenth year.
He was also recently caught in a scandal of sexual harassment of a number of female journalists. But this did not seem to have had much effect on Slutsky.
The third place is Haritonov from the Russian Communist Party.
The Communist Party of Russia has always been the second largest party in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. Its party chairman, Gennady Zyuganov, has been running for the ** campaign since the Yeltsin era. Especially in 1996, Zyuganov almost won over Yeltsin and became Russia.
This veteran comrade was born in 1944 and has been the chairman of the Communist Party of Russia since its founding in 1993, and is still active in Russia.
But how to say it, Zyuganov is also an old man. This time he put forward his right-hand man, Nikolai Haritonov, for the election.
Even Zyuganov in 1944 was still young and promising compared to Biden in 1942.
Coming from the Far East, Kharitonov graduated from the Agricultural Academy and spent most of his life in agricultural management in the Novosibirsk region.
In 2004, Haritonov participated in the ** election for Zyuganov, and the vote rate was second only to Putin (of course, no.).1 and no2).
Nikolai Haritonov.
Compared with the Liberal Democratic Party and the New People's Party in front of it, the Communist Party of Russia has the highest support in Russia's old industrial regions and vast agricultural areas, especially in the economically backward Siberia-Far East, and belongs to Russia's center-left party. However, whether it is leaders, party members or supporters, the phenomenon of aging is very serious.
Finally, let's briefly talk about why Putin did not represent the United Russia party this time, but ran as an independent candidate.
In fact, if you look at the timeline a little longer, you will find that three of Putin's first four campaigns** were run as independent candidates.
The only exception was 2012. At that time, as the country's prime minister and chairman of the ruling party, the "United Russia" party, he was nominated by the "United Russia" party, and after winning the election, he handed over the post of party chairman to Medvedev, who became prime minister from **.
Since then, Medvedev has been the head of Russia's ruling party. And after stepping down as Prime Minister of the Russian Federation in early 2020, he became the deputy chairman of the State Security Council.
As a result, some people say that if Medvedev is not prime minister, he will be forced to withdraw from the circle, which is indeed too exaggerated. First of all, he is the head of the ruling party in Russia; Moreover, the position of deputy chairman of the National Security Committee of the Russian Federation is also very critical, and Medvedev is second only to Putin in terms of power in *** affairs - the chairman of the National Security Committee is Putin himself!
The reason why Putin does not represent any party may be due to the fact that on the one hand, he is not the chairman of the ruling party, and if he runs on behalf of a political party, he will have to toss and turn for nomination and re-voting within the party, which is more troublesome, so he simply abandons this link. In any case, the United Russia party supported his candidacy 100 percent.
In addition, the identity of an independent candidate can also attract voters outside the United Russia party, creating a universal image that "Putin is the leader of all Russian citizens".
Put simply, this means that all parties and non-parties can elect Putin, and Putin is the representative of all of Russia, not just one party.
Even if it is based on the United Russia Party alone, Putin already has an absolute advantage.
In short, Russia's national conditions and popular sentiments are rather special, the political parties are weak, and strongman politics is advocated.
So we see that the ** elections in Russia are indeed participated by the whole people, but the frequency of ** replacement has been very low. Moreover, when they are changed, they are all picked and replaced in a fixed small circle, and there is hardly much suspense, and it is impossible for a candy factory owner or comedian to suddenly enter the Kremlin to give orders.