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.”
Connect With Us