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Thread: Russia tries to entice voters to polls to prop up Putin's legitimacy

  1. #1

    Russia tries to entice voters to polls to prop up Putin's legitimacy

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...tin-legitimacy

    Putin apparently doesn't even appear in any of his re-election ads. He will win- (not hard when you control the media and decide who runs against you). The question is how many will actually vote. He is promoting his military powers with nuclear weapons tests and announcements last week and the election date itself was moved to the anniversary of their official annexation of Crimea- to remind voters of that great occasion.

    Worried about turnout, officials experiment with raffles, selfie competitions and referendums

    In the Siberian region of Krasnoyarsk, political activists are raffling a car, while in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, the prize is an iPhone X. In Berdsk, the best selfie will be plastered across a billboard. The catch? To qualify for a chance to win, Russians must turn out to vote.

    There is little doubt that Vladimir Putin will win a fourth term as president in the election next Sunday, making him the first Kremlin leader since Stalin to serve two decades in power.

    But in an uncontested political field, the Kremlin is worried about turnout. And with concerns that Putin’s appeal alone may not be enough to get out the vote, officials across the country are experimenting with raffles, competitions and the occasional referendum – like one in Volgograd that asks voters whether they want to change time zones – all in an effort to ensure Putin wins with greater support than in 2012.

    “I think a good result for Putin would be him beating his 2012 results,” said Valery Fyodorov, the head of a leading state-owned polling agency, VCIOM, who regularly presents the results of his polling at the Kremlin. Sixty-five per cent of voters turned out in 2012, with 63.6% supporting Putin.

    “My understanding is that the administration wants to pull, not push, people to these elections,” Fyodorov said. “And that means not using punishments or threats, but bringing people out to vote with better messaging and, yes, some selfie contests and referendums to raise interest.”

    The 2018 election may already go down as one of Russia’s most bizarre and inert. The president can’t be bothered to star in his own campaign adverts, the Communist party’s candidate, Pavel Grudunin, is a millionaire and former member of the ruling party, some Putin opponents consulted the Kremlin before announcing their presidential bids, and the most prominent opposition politician in the country – Alexei Navalny – has been barred from running.

    At Putin’s first campaign event, at Moscow’s Luzhniki stadium on Saturday, some organisers padded out the crowds with paid attendees. The country’s hockey league delayed the first round of its playoffs so that players could appear on stage with Putin.

    And yet, despite the obvious staging of elements of this campaign, insiders, pollsters, political commentators and opposition members say the government’s legitimacy is on the line.

    “Turnout is a measure of the public’s support,” said Evgeny Roizmann, mayor of Yekaterinburg, the country’s third largest city. A rare public opponent of Putin in Russia’s heartland, Roizmann has said he will not vote.

    The Kremlin must walk a tightrope in this election: garnering enough support to confirm its validity, while avoiding the kinds of strong-arm tactics that prompted widespread anti-government protests after parliamentary elections in 2011. And to achieve that, authorities aim to create a “holiday-like atmosphere” on voting day.

    The first step in the campaign to get out the vote came last May when members of the State Duma moved the election date to 18 March. That day will mark the fourth anniversary of the signing of a treaty to annex Crimea, a milestone in Putin’s third term that pushed his nominal approval ratings above 80%.

    On election day, residents of the oil-rich Siberian city of Tyumen will enjoy a massive spring festival to help get people to the polls. Young Muscovites who vote will have a chance to win tickets to a “super-show” featuring the entertainer Timati and the Georgian rapper L’One. And across the Russia’s nine time zones, parents will be asked to vote in referendums on the timings of school holidays.

    There has been minimal pushback. The central elections committee has opposed a number of official referendums that had been scheduled for the same day as the elections, although its head, Ella Pamfilova, gave her OK to the selfie contests, telling a late-night TV host: “By all means admire yourself but wait until the voting is over so that it isn’t considered to be campaigning.”
    More at link.

    Also sending pictures of sexy women to entice young males to vote.

    A series of illustrated images of pin-up models featured in the Russian edition of Maxim magazine’s “Only for Adults” group on Vkontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook, were aimed at getting young men to the polls.

    “The idea is that there are some things you can only do when you’re 18: get married, drive a car, have sex, join the army – and vote,” Alexander Malenkov, the editor-in-chief of Maxim magazine, told the Guardian by phone, adding that it was aimed at young people in the 18-24 bracket who have never voted before.

    Malenkov refused to say who ordered the images, which were marketed as “stickers” that could be shared with friends, or how much they paid for the campaign. But he said he had tasked a team of 10 editors to produce content for the group, which has amassed 430,000 members.

    The images prompted a minor political scandal, partly because they seemed a particularly ham-fisted way to court the male youth vote and partly because the images appear to have been plagiarised.

    “We can’t even have election stickers without falsifications,” went one joke shared online among opposition members.
    Last edited by Zippyjuan; 03-11-2018 at 07:12 PM.



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  3. #2
    LOL learning from USG. Welcome to our nightmare, Russia.

  4. #3
    Here ya go zippy... some MUCH 'juicier' stuff 4 U

    Part 1



    Part 2



    Part 3







    http://geopolitics-behind-the-mask.3...low-td169.html
    Last edited by goldenequity; 03-11-2018 at 08:09 PM.

  5. #4
    OMG – Russia has a 'Get Out the Vote Campaign' in their Own election – OMG!”. Russians should never be encouraged to vote in their own elections.

    This OP exposes just how idiotic the bigoted anti-Russia hysterics is. The Guardian has officially become the Onion. Figures the Zippy would be pushing this.

    First of all, Russia’s internal election is none of the US or UK’s business.

    Next, it’s a good thing the US and UK would never ever have any get out the vote campaigns. Nope, the US political parties and election agencies would never promote voter registration, or get out the vote drives. – Oh what a horrendous thing for people to vote in their own nation’s presidential election. Get Out the Vote efforts, and Voter Registration drives must be completely unheard of in the USA or UK – in fact the must be outlawed based on the hysterics of this Guardian piece.

    The Guardian has gone completely off the deep end with its delusions anti Russia bigotry campaign.

    If only other nations elections could be run more like the Hillary Clinton campaign – rigging the primaries, mysterious deaths of whistle-blowers (Seth Rich), proven campaign collusion with big Media, staged padding of her rallies with paid attendants, foreign funding through her Charity slush fund, unlawful campaign collusion with Superpacs, illegal funding of her campaign with $84 million of Superpac money funneled through state chapters to the DNC and then into HRC campaign coffers, Hillary’s funding of manufactured fake dossier to defame her political opponent, ...



    Last edited by AZJoe; 03-12-2018 at 11:44 AM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  6. #5
    Off-Guardian sums up the Guardian hysteria nicely:

    "Currently the Guardian’s editorial style isn’t so much ranting as it is writhing on the ground screaming “Putin…curse him…and crush him…we hates him forever…” …

    there has been at least one hysterical anti-Russian piece published every day over at Graun HQ. And if we thought previous bias and inaccuracy was deplorable, the journalistic standard displayed in these recent examples has become debased and frankly terrifying. … because it shows that zealotry and pure xenophobia are driving out every other consideration.

    These articles are barely coherent any more. They are clearly written by people who have lost even the ambition toward perspective. They are little more than distilled Hate. Hate for an individual, hate for a culture, hate for an entire nation, hate that doesn’t even try to pretend it has higher motives than hate itself any more."
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.

  7. #6
    Representative Democracy Is Sacrosanct!



    Muh ballot!

  8. #7
    Saker sums up the election results:

    Here are the preliminary results explained in simple, plain, English:
    1) Putin easily wins by a landslide and is *more* popular than ever
    2) The Russian Communists and Zhirinovsky have reached terminal irrelevancy
    3) Only 2.6% of Russians are pro-USA and generally pro-West (Sobchak+Yavlinsky)
    4) The entire AngloZionist anti-Putin campaign has miserably failed
    5) The Empire has two choices left: go to war or fold
    6) If the Empire chooses to to go war it will face a completely united Russia
    Last edited by AZJoe; 03-26-2018 at 02:12 PM.
    "Let it not be said that we did nothing." - Dr. Ron Paul. "Stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone." - Sophie Magdalena Scholl
    "War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne "Freedom is the answer. ... Now, what's the question?" - Ernie Hancock.



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