Russians go to the polls on March 15-17 for a presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is certain to win, barring something unexpected.

Such a development would ensure the Kremlin’s longest-serving leader after Joseph Stalin another six-year term in power.

The elections will be held on March 15-17. The results will follow shortly and the winner will take office in May.

Voting will also take place in what Russia calls new territories – parts of Ukraine now controlled by Russian forces, now under Russian law.

Ukraine says it will not rest until it expels every last Russian soldier from the annexed territories.

For the first time in a presidential election in Russia, an online voting system will be available.

There are 112.3 million people eligible to vote in elections. Another 1.9 million people abroad have the right to vote and 12,000 in Baikonur, Russia’s cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Usually 70-80 million people vote. Participation in 2018 was 67.5%.

Putin is running against communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People’s party. Boris Nadiezdin, who is against the war, was not allowed to run, as was Ekaterina Dutsova.

Putin, 71, a former KGB lieutenant colonelwas appointed acting president by Boris Yeltsin on the last day of 1999. He won the 2000 presidential election with 53.0% of the vote and the 2004 election with 71.3% of the vote.

In 2008, Dmitry Medvedev ran as a presidential candidate and Putin served as prime minister, before winning 63.6% of the vote in the 2012 presidential election and 76.7% in 2018.

HOW LONG CAN A RUSSIAN PRESIDENT RULE FOR?

Putin has already served as president longer than any other Russian leader since Joseph Stalin, even surpassing Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s 18-year tenure.

The Russian constitution of 1993, broadly based on the French constitution of 1958, was seen by some in the West as a development that could lead to democracy in post-Soviet Russia. It originally stipulated that a president could serve only two four-year terms, if they were consecutive.

However, the 2008 constitutional revision extended the presidential term to six years, while the 2020 amendments effectively zeroed out Putin’s years as president from 2024, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036. These amendments prohibit also the assignment of lands.

The West considers Putin a war criminal, murderer and dictator, but polls at home show him with approval ratings as high as 85% — higher than before the invasion of Ukraine.

The Kremlin says that Putin has the overwhelming support of the Russian people and that Russia does not want the West preaching to it about democracy.

Russian officials argue that the West is trying to undermine Russia by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election.

Supporters say Putin has halted the downward spiral, which culminated in the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and restored at least some of the influence wielded by the General Secretaries who ruled the Soviet Union while raising his stature in what the Kremlin calls declining US-led West.

Much of the Russian opposition — ranging from hard-line communists to radical nationalists — adheres to the official rules of the tightly controlled political system and, despite having seats in parliament, does not oppose the Kremlin on major issues. Pro-Western liberals have no seats in parliament.

Supporters of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny are either in prison or have fled abroad. Other opposition figures, such as former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, also live abroad.

They describe Putin as a mafia godfather who has built a system of personal rule based on corruption. Putin’s opponents have been predicting since 1999 that one day the turmoil will lead to the collapse of the system he presides over.

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has said the scale of public support for him since his death proves his fight continues and called for mass election day protests against Putin.

Navalny, in one of his last public messages, had called on citizens to protest against Putin by voting en masse at 12 noon (local time) on March 17, forming long queues and ‘flooding’ polling stations.

Navalnaya followed up on her husband’s call.

“It is a very simple and safe action, it cannot be banned and it will help thousands of people to see like-minded people and realize that we are not alone,” he said. “We are surrounded by people who are also anti-war, anti-corruption and anti-lawlessness.”

Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who was sentenced to four years in prison in January, said the March election would be a “fraud” with the winner already clear.

Girkin, who does not recognize Ukraine as a sovereign state and says much of it is part of Russia, said Russia would face defeat in the war unless it removed its top commanders and began fighting more seriously.

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said in January that it was particularly regretful that Russia had decided not to invite Organization observers to the election.

“We regret that conditions have deteriorated so much in the Russian Federation that we cannot deploy observers for the presidential elections in March,” said Pia Kouma, chair of the Organization’s Parliamentary Assembly.

“The first election observation mission organized by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly was to Russia in 1993 and since then we have observed ten national elections in the country. It is very unfortunate that the democratic backsliding has reached such a critical point that we cannot be on the ground as observers this year, but of course we will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

In 2018, the ODIHR reported that intensive efforts were made to boost participation and that the number of citizens who voted was significant.

“Yet restrictions on the fundamental freedoms of assembly, association and expression, as well as on the registration of candidates, have limited the scope for engagement in politics and led to a lack of real competition,” it said.

“While candidates were generally able to campaign freely, extensive and uncritical coverage of the sitting president in most media outlets led to an uneven playing field. Overall, the election day was conducted in an orderly manner despite the problems related to the secret ballot and the transparency of the counting.”