Editorials: Russia's Latest Fake Election | Maxim Trudolyubov/The New York Times

After watching the local and gubernatorial elections in Russia on Sunday, one cannot help wondering: Why bother? Why does the Kremlin need to push the illusion of democracy when the results are predetermined? The only region where an opposition force worthy of the name was allowed to participate — in Kostroma oblast east of Moscow — saw voting marred by bullying and the arrests of anti-Kremlin candidates. No one could figure out why the Democratic Coalition, the only grouping of parties openly critical of President Vladimir Putin, was even allowed to run. All municipal, regional and gubernatorial elections in Russia are held on the same day, and in nearly all of them United Russia, the main pro-Kremlin party, was victorious. How could it lose when its candidates enjoyed access to unlimited resources and dominated the airwaves while their challengers were vilified as traitors?
The murder in February of the opposition leader Boris Nemtsov became the backdrop to the entire campaign. His political associates were routinely harassed, ridiculed and eventually denied registration as candidates in every regional constituency except one.
“The results of most campaigns were predetermined by the incumbents and electoral commissions at the stages of candidate registration and campaigning,” Golos, an independent electoral monitoring group, said in a statement after the voting. A certain controlled competition was allowed, but only among candidates of the so-called pocket opposition, which includes Communists and left- and right-wing populists who do not even pretend to be independent.
The word “election” is a misnomer for what has just happened in Russia, but the voting does serve a purpose. “The election is a moment for the regional authorities to demonstrate their loyalty to the federal government,” says Ekaterina Schulmann, a political scientist and a shrewd analyst of Russian politics. “The top political management uses elections to confirm its own ability to keep both the center and the regions under control.”
Full Article: Russia’s Latest Fake Election – The New York Times.