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.
She'd have my vote!
Recently, she visited DC and took questions at a National Press Club luncheon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDdYHAJ8X5c&feature=youtu.be&t=2311
Ksenia is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, the first post-Soviet mayor of St. Petersburg, whose deputy in that office was an obscure ex-KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. Her case is a complicated one, in very Russian ways.
Russia’s GDP per capita ($8748) is now below China’s ($8806), thanks to the crash in oil and gas prices. To put this in perspective, China pumps $60 worth of oil per citizen per year vs Russia’s $1600. To put this in perspective, just based on oil alone, Russia’s output per capita would be $1600 per person per year even if the non-oil economy just sat around playing chess vs China’s $60. As far as the well-being of the hoi polloi goes, Putin is making the Gulf state emirs/sultans look like enlightened rulers.
“” “” Russia’s GDP per capita ($8748) is now below China’s ($8806), thanks to the crash in oil and gas prices. “” “”
You fail to mention that the Russian output was twice that much just four years ago.
Some says it has plummeted due to energy market others say it is a result of an economic war waged by the West.
Both versions has facts behind them and you can’t blame Putin supporters for believing the latter.
It is clear that globalist are after Russia in full force. China doesn’t have such problem.
Putin is a Christian who has kept the atheist commies in check.
RUSSIA IS INTERFERING IN THE RUSSIAN ELECTION!!!!
The more times you vote for Putin the more you love Russia.
The guy in the video loves Russia hundreds of times more than others.
https://twitter.com/Gulay_Pole/status/975232062532870147
Turnout is low this morning... in the Far East, highest turnout at 10 am was 48%.
Nationwide turnout at 1O:00 am Moscow time is 16.55%.
Putin will win but it remains to be seen whether voter apathy disappear by the time polls close.
The Kremlin was hoping for 70% turnout and Putin may be re-elected but at a pace comparable to 2012 when he received 63% in the first round.
The regime has convinced every one the Fatherland is under siege and its one’s patriotic duty to vote for the President.
Whether enough people will turn out to give him the mandate Putin is looking for is the problem.
When you have the effective President For Life running, how does my vote matter.
In a nation of sheep, it doesn’t. He just can’t lose. ;-)
Look at the other people in that place. A guy is stuffing a ballot box right there in the open and no one cares. They even line up and wait until he is finished.
Maybe its insurance policy. :) If the official figures are to believed, turnout in urban centers is low.
Putin will get a much higher turnout in the countryside and small towns.
There is an urban-rural divide in Russia. The Kremlin is resigned to the fact it can’t get people in Moscow and St. Petersburg to be as enthusiastic about the President as elsewhere around the country.
I think that is why he banned Navalny from participating. Navalny might very well build up enough popularity to win even semi-fair Moscow mayoral elections in September this year. That would mean Putin would have to fix the elections in heavy handed way and that would be embarrassing for him. Better just ban Navalny.
It is easy to be a big winner if you kill off and/or exile the opposition, including rich contenders, the press, and other politicians.
As of 5:00 PM Moscow time, nationwide turnout is at 52%.
Polls close at 8:00 PM local time.
There have been reports of ballot-box stuffing.
Some voters have reported being ordered/coerced to vote for Putin.
And in a very Russian twist, voter turnout is being booted with offers of food and polar bears!
Navalny’s take:
Shnur - Candidates are **** WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f5A-NQbUSik
Local election rallies are the funniest.
Town of Muchino, established 1070 ad:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=320s&v=Q1J5lUKnD4I
As of 7:00 PM Moscow Time, nationwide turnout stands at 59%.
First exit poll projection released by the all-Russia Center Of Public Polling:
Putin has won the first round ballot with 74% of the vote, a historic landslide.
He received 63% in the first round ballot in the 2012 presidential election.
Not really surprising.
Some neocon trotskite trolls would cry election fraud of course.
Why did Putin win? My takeaways?
He was the guy with an 80% personal approval rating. Impossible to beat a guy who is enormously popular. You might well be King Canute holding back the tide. There is no doubt the vast majority of Russians like and trust Putin, no matter what they think of their government.
Then there is the fact the opposition was never able to unite around a candidate who could credibly pose a threat to Putin. It ran a listless and uninspiring candidate. To be fair, even in a completely and fair election, that would have an uphill task.
Putin is an astute and accomplished leader and politician. That if any thing adds to his win and with his first class campaign team, they deserve congratulations. They only fell off a few points of the personal approval rating. It was well deserved.
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