- By Mike Eckel
Putin As 'Guiding Star'
It’s not the first time in recent memory that a lavishly produced music video is circulating in Russia extolling Vladimir Putin. The one that was posted to YouTube on March 6 is unusual in two regards, however.
First is its timing: just 12 days remaining before the presidential election. As of March 8, it had attracted nearly 790,000 views on YouTube and more than 10 million on VK.
Second is that the team of celebrities enlisted includes some of Russia’s best-known pop stars, including rapper Timati and Eurovision winner Dima Bilan.
According to The Moscow Times, the organizers are calling "Team Putin" an effort that was started by hockey star Aleksandr Ovechkin. The name of the song? Guiding Star, whose first word in Russian sounds vaguely like Putin.
Here’s a quick translation of some of the lyrics (courtesy of The Moscow Times):
Our ship sails with pride towards the wind and waves, and will not be veered off course by storms and rain.
The ocean of life can be difficult, but our native shores keep us safe.
Out of a million stars, only one is true, only one is visible: the guiding star.
We are stronger together, if the guiding star is with us, showing us the way.
- By Carl Schreck
Sobchak Invites Golos And Navalny Monitors Into Her Camp
Candidate Ksenia Sobchak has invited election monitors from the camps of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny and the independent election watchdog Golos to serve as her official observers during the March 18 balloting.
The Central Election Commission previously refused to accredit representatives of publications linked to Navalny and Golos as election monitors. Navalny has been barred from the ballot due to a criminal conviction he calls politically motivated. Golos has repeatedly clashed with authorities over its critical assessments of Russian elections and previous foreign financing.
Navalny has called Sobchak a "caricature liberal candidate" whose candidacy is being used by the Kremlin to project the illusion of an open electoral process while simultaneously discrediting true opposition candidates.
Kremlin 'Trolls' Meddling In Russia's Own Elections? 'Of Course We Are!'
By Dmitry Volchek and Robert Coalson
Over the last three years, there have been many reports from people working inside the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg -- an enterprise perhaps better known as Putin's Troll Factory.
Most of those accounts have come from former employees and have focused on their work to influence politics and societies in the West.
And in fact, oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin's company was named last month in an indictment by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
But the Internet Research Agency has a much larger contingent of Russian-language trolls, working to promote the Kremlin's ends inside Russia itself -- sowing paranoia and confusion, and spreading false accusations and malicious characterizations of anyone the ruling elites see as a danger to the system created by President Vladimir Putin.
Early last month, however, an account appeared on the Telegram app under the name Kremlebot from a man who purports to be currently working in the Russian-language section of the Internet Research Agency. Kremlebot declined RFE/RL's requests for an interview, fearing that it could lead to his unmasking. Instead, he agreed to let RFE/RL quote freely from his Telegram posts.
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Another installment in our video primers on the presidential election is upon us. This one profiles the man most conspicuously excluded from the ballot and someone already pretty familiar to most of you.
The previous installments were The Watchdogs and The Shoo-In.
Note that the Navalny rally that authorities have rejected (see below or here) was (is?) planned for Manezh Square, where, as we previously reported, the Kremlin is said to be planning to hold its Putin victory rally on March 18.
Via The Moscow Times and RBC:
Moscow Officials Block Navalny's Boycott Rally On Election Day
Moscow city officials have rejected opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s request to hold a rally in the capital on March 18, the day of Russia’s presidential elections.
Navalny was barred from participating in upcoming elections, which Vladimir Putin is expected to win, due to a prior criminal conviction for embezzlement that his supporters say is politically motivated. He has called for a boycott the elections in which authorities are hoping to secure a 70 percent turnout.
The Moscow mayor’s representative Vladimir Chernikov told the RBC business portal that the so-called “Voter’s Strike,” violated Russian election law.
“Holding such a protest on election day is illegal,” Chernikov said.
Irkutsk Against The Boycott
As we have reported previously, many places in Russia are hold nonbinding but still somehow interesting referendums on March 18 in apparent bids to boost turnout.
In the face of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny's call for a voter boycott, the Kremlin evidently feels that low turnout could undermine the legitimacy as incumbent Putin cruises to a fourth term as president.
The Far Eastern city of Irkutsk has launched a particularly interesting referendum in which voters will supposedly decide in which municipal district the city will spend 150 million rubles ($2.1 million) for improvements.
The winner, the city claims, will get new parks and squares and more. Interestingly, locals above the age of 14 are eligible to vote.
'A Million Reasons' Plugs Yavlinsky
Someone (the Yabloko party?) has set up a website that randomly generates purported reasons to vote for liberal presidential candidate Grigory Yavlinsky.
The simple website, called A Million Reasons, features a portrait of Yavlinsky and a single button. Each time the user pushes it, a new reason to support Yavlinsky appears.
"You may not believe in Yavlinsky, but he believes in you," one says.
"No meldonium was found in Yavlinsky's samples," says another.
"The DNA of a banana is 50 percent identical with the DNA of a human. Yavlinsky is no exception," states a third.
RFE/RL has not yet been able to confirm that there are, in fact, a million reasons on the site. But there are quite a few.
Vote To End The Right To Vote
Ultranationalist candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who is given virtually no chance of winning, promised in a televised debate on March 8 that he would end "democracy" in Russia and "introduce the most brutal dictatorship."
Zhirinovsky said such a dictatorship is necessary to "punish [unspecified] oligarchs and everyone who steals."
Commenting on Facebook, Russian journalist Aleksei Kovalyov noted via (a private link on) Facebook that Zhirinovsky is "perfectly aware he's losing...against a brutal dictator."
Incumbent President Putin is overwhelmingly expected to claim a fourth term as president.
- By Mike Eckel
Five Things Chatham House Wants You To Know About The Election
The results of the March 18 presidential election may not be much in doubt, but according to Chatham House there’s plenty more at stake than people realize. The venerable British foreign affairs think tank has put together a punchy summation that boils down to this:
(1) This is a one-man re-coronation.
(2) Turnout is crucial however.
(3) The opposition is irrelevant.
(4) The international element is important.
(5) What matters are the next six years — and beyond.