Posted on 03/17/2018 5:17:22 PM PDT by goldstategop
Russian Politics & Diplomacy World Business & Economy Military & Defense Science & Space Society & Culture Sport Press Review Presidential election kicks off in Russia Russian Politics & Diplomacy March 17, 23:34 UTC+3 Residents of the country’s easternmost regions - Kamchatka and Chukotka - are the first to cast their votes Share
© Sergey Malgavko/TASS MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. Russia’s presidential election has begun in the Far East. Residents of the country’s easternmost regions - Kamchatka and Chukotka - are the first to cast their votes.
Eighty-five Russian regions cover eleven time zones. While it is still Saturday night in most Russian regions, it is 08.00 a.m. Sunday in Kamchatka and Chukotka, when polling stations open the doors for voters.
How Russia votes At midnight Moscow time, the Sakhalin and Magadan Regions will begin voting. At 01.00 Moscow time, the Primorsky and Khabarovsk Regions, eastern Yakutia will start casting their ballots. An hour later, the bulk of Yakutia will follow suit.
At 03.00 Moscow time, the presidential election will kick off in the Trans-Baikal and Irkutsk Regions, and an hour later, in the Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo and Tuva Regions.
The regions of Altai, Omsk, Tomsk and Novosibirsk will open polling stations at 05.00 a.m. Moscow time to be followed by the Urals regions an hour later, at 06.00 Moscow time and by the Volga regions two hours later, at 07.00.
Polling stations will open at 08.00 a.m. in central and northwestern Russia and the North Caucasus. Residents of the westernmost Kaliningrad region will be the last to go to the polls, which will open at 09.00 there and close at 21.00 Moscow time.
Therefore, the first results will be made public across the country only later on.
Russia’s presidential election Russia will hold its presidential election on Sunday, March 18. Eight candidates are running for the highest office in the Russian Federation.
Among them are: incumbent President Vladimir Putin; Pavel Grudinin, director of the Lenin State Farm (nominated by the Communist Party of Russia); TV personality and socialite Ksenia Sobchak (nominated by Civil Initiative); Sergey Baburin, head of the Russian People’s Union party; Maxim Suraikin, chairman of the Central Committee of the Communists of Russia party; Boris Titov, chairman of the Party of Growth and Russian Presidential Envoy for Entrepreneurs’ Rights; Grigory Yavlinsky, head of the Yabloko Party’s federal political committee; Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR).
The candidate to occupy the nation’s highest post - the Russian presidency - is elected according to direct suffrage, which was introduced based on the results of a referendum on March 17, 1991. Any citizen not younger than 35, and who has been permanently residing in Russia for at least 10 years, is eligible to run for office of President of Russia.
On Sunday, March 18, 2018, a total of 96,000 polling stations will begin to open nationwide at 08:00 local time. The voting will last until 20:00 local time.
According to Ella Pamfilova, the head of the Central Election Commission (CEC), some 1,500 foreign observers from 109 countries will be monitoring the presidential elections.
Some 13,000 journalists representing more than 2,400 Russian media outlets will be covering the elections. In addition, over 1,400 journalists, including 400 foreign reporters, will work at the CEC media center.
Once the voting ends, the district election commissions will open the ballot boxes with the observers watching the process, and count the votes. The returns will then be written down in the district commissions’ statements of votes (SOV). The 2018 election will see the introduction of a new QR-code technology. Each SOV will bear a unique QR-code to be identified by a special scanner. This will help avoid mistakes in feeding data into the national automated vote-counting system - GAS Vybory.
The chief of each district election commission will take the SOV to the regional election commission, where the data will be uploaded into the GAS Vybory vote-counting system.
The Central Election Commission shall approve of the election returns within 10 days.
In order to clinch a victory in the first round, a candidate has to receive more than half of the votes cast. Should none of the candidates collect enough votes, a runoff election would be called within three weeks’ time for the frontrunner and the runner-up. A simple majority will determine the winner in that case.
The Soviet nomenklatura simply transferred their allegiance to the new state. Unlike Eastern Europe, there was no true decommunization in the sense of completely repudiating the Soviet past.
The victory in the Great Patriotic War is where there’s a national consensus and feeling of genuine national pride but after that the consensus breaks down.
There’s regret over the loss of the big country and the promise to restore it attracts chauvinists to the likes of Zhironovsky, who promise to restore the Russian Empire.
Nostalgia, while a strong feeling has limits.
Putin’s legitimacy is ever more reliant upon a positive historical view and understanding of Stalin. I slept under a portrait of Stalin next to a Virgin Mary icon in an apartment I stayed in for several weeks. There you have the spiritual schizophrenia of modern Russia in a nutshell.
Stalin statues are en vogue too. Especially after annexation of Crimea, which revived Soviet glory sympathies to fever pitch.
Benevolent? Autocrat? Easy to say when you are not forced to live under his thumb after having been a spoiled Westerner which is what we are if we have had the privilege to live in this country...
Russians would be a lot richer if they weren’t plundered by Putin and his oligarch cronies whose wealth is stored and laundered in globali$t Western banks and insitutions. Whose estates and investments are in London, Miami, Switzerland, and the like.
Are you even American?! “Benevolent autocrat” is so un-American a statement to make.
Putin is supprted by the russian people in the same way We supported Eisenhower & Reagan. All three had 60%+ approval ratings.
The Soviet past is melded with traditional Russian culture.
Your description of post-Soviet Russia conjures up the image of the mythical chimaera - a composite creature. Modern Russia is a composite country.
The statement fits because Russia is not exactly a full-blown dictatorship nor it is a pure democracy. I agree, Russia would be a better country if it had a democratic ruler. It doesn’t.
Which brings me to the point of Sunday’s election: Putin has eliminated all viable challengers leaving people without someone else they could see themselves coalescing behind.
Its an election ostensibly democratic in form but lacking in substance.
Ballot Box stuffing Kicks Off In Russia
It is not a composite country. It is very fragile and filled with anguish which is ever more palpable the longer you stay. (And draining to be honest...its no wonder problems like alcoholism while improved is still pretty bad in parts.)
And that is where Putin’s popularity comes from: fear of falling apart...
But they also need to realize they are capable without him...they need faith in themselves. Russians lack it right now. And that is why Putin is still there.
Putin’s approval rating is 80%. He has always paid close attention to his popularity.
At the same, Russia is entering the post-Putin era because he is a lamb duck and the Russian Constitution currently limits the President to two consecutive terms.
Nothing prevents him from changing the Constitution to eliminate term limits or to serve again as Prime Minister. He has plenty of time to decide on his options if he wants to remain in office after 2024.
They are capable without him.
To become a real country, they need to take an honest look at the past and decide who they are.
Putin in many ways, is a transitional figure. Whether that leads to real change in Russia after he is gone, remains to be seen.
Boris Titov would make a decent leader, IMHO, and I hope to see him run again.
The paper ballots will be hacked. Invisible ink.
The also-rans will get around 10%.
Every one has been campaigning since December.
Putin is running as an independent but he has been endorsed by all the Kremlin-aligned parties.
this is about as valid as the Iraqi elections where Saddam Hussein would win 97% of the vote.
You forgot the quotes around the first two words.
The Presidential term limit in the Russian Constitution is nowhere near as strong as is our 22nd Amendment. It's basically meaningless as it only prevents serving a third consecutive term as President, as opposed to the 22nd Amendment's lifetime ban after two terms. Putin already showed this during his tenure as Prime Minister (i.e., de facto President).
“” “” Stalin was an absolute tyrant and mass murderer. Putin is a benevolent autocrat and under him there’s no mass terror or purges.”” “”
You are talking for deaf ears.
Rose is with the people who want the left to take back Russia.
Her ‘anti-Stalinism’ is fake and distraction.
She is a typical McCrazie.
Who’s votes are counted in Russia any more? Putin is the de-facto President of Russia until he dies. In fact - didn’t he “turn over” an election to another fellow several years ago to appease the law that he later changed to allow him to no longer have any form of term limits?
The President is limited by the Russian Constition to two consecutive terms.
Under the Dmitri Medvedev administration, the Constitution was amendment to lengthen the presidential term from four years to six years.
Putin got around term limits by serving an intervening term as Prime Minister from 2008-2012; after that he ran for President in 2012 and won and this year, he is standing for a second consecutive term as President.
In 2024, this would render a lame duck, right? Not so fast - he could stand down for an intervening term or more likely, have the Constitution amended to abolish term limits altogether.
The question of whether Putin can safely retire is whether a successor gives immunity for his acts while in office. And the Russian elite would have to agree on a successor who has Putin’s blessings.
A peaceful transition to the post-Putin era won’t become clear for sometime yet.
Is it you?
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