Russian Presidential Election, 2018

[Former President tack50]

Pavel Grudinin as he seems like the one with the highest chances of getting to the 2nd round (ie 0% but still).

He is still terrible though.

[Former President tack50]

Not sure how representative those places are or if the polls are any good, but if Grudinin is seriously tied with Putin then I hope Russia goes to a shocker 2nd round.

[Former President tack50]

Not much I'll admit. But honestly I'd rather have some communist terrible person than Putin if only for the sake of alternance.

[Former President tack50]

Eh, yes and no. State control of the the media is serious factor, but there is also evidence of serious vote manipulation, perhaps heavily influencing outcome; eg:

Sure.  I totally agree that in some various ethnic enclaves where the governor is pretty much the local King (like Chechnya, Dagestan,  Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia, Tuva [which I claim as part of China anyway] etc etc) the votes are manufactured for Putin.  But they make up of a fairly small part of the overall Russian Federation vote.  There seems very little doubt in my mind  that even if we take out these manufactured votes for Putin there is still a solid (although reduced) majority for Putin.

Yup, I'm pretty sure that even if the election was 100% clean Putin would still win. He might have to go to a second round (like Yeltin in 1996) but he would easily win.

[Former President tack50]

Question for the Russian posters- if Navalny was allowed to be on the ballot this time, what percent of the vote do you think he would've gotten? Would he reach 2nd place?

About 10% i think. Theoretically, his populist base could give him even 20, but - not with present set of candidates..

I wonder then, why didn't Putin allow him to run? Wouldn't he be able to spin it as a victory for him, like "traitor Navalny doesn't have the support of true Russians" or something like that?

Hypothetically even something like Putin 60%; Navalny 20%; everyone else 20% would probably be seen like a victory and would avoid a runoff

[Former President tack50]

Question for the Russian posters,

When do polls close? And where can you follow the results of the so-called election?

[Former President tack50]

Obviously it's all rigged and we'll never know the real numbers but it's still really hilarious that with 30% of the vote in Pavel Grudinin is on 15%.

I guess he somehow concentrated the anti-Putin vote? That plus USSR nostalgics probably got him to 15%

[Former President tack50]

Here's a surprisingly great map and results page in English! If anyone is interested

https://sputniknews.com/russia-elections-2018/201803161062517712-russian-presidential-election/

Looking at the regional results, thus far the best and worst place for each candidate seems to be:

Vladimir Putin
Best: Kabardino-Balkaria (93.61%)
Worst: Sakha Republic (64.38%)

Pavel Grudinin
Best: Sakha Republic (27.25%)
Worst: Crimea (2.22%)

Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Best: Komi Republic (10.18%)
Worst: Dagestan (0.26%)

Ksenia Sobchak
Best: Moscow city (4.02%)
Worst: Dagestan (0.22%)

Grigory Yablinsky
Best: Moscow city (3.15%)
Worst: Dagestan (0.17%)

Boris Titov
Best: Ingushetia (1.63%)
Worst: Tuva (0.20%)

Maxim Suraykin
Best: North Ossetia-Alanya (1.73%)
Worst: Crimea (0.21%)

Sergey Baburin
Best: Omsk Oblast (1.12%)
Worst: Dagestan (0.12%)

Of course this is mostly academic because of vote rigging and the like. Also not sure if there are any sort of regional patterns. Seems like Putin performed best in the ethnic republics (rigged elections). Not sure about the others.

[Former President tack50]

Yes, i willingly participate, and WILL participate. As long as there is even slight possibility to show, that "sane people" exist in Russia - i will do it. BTW, most countries you mentioned as "making considerable progress to democracy rather quickly" had relatively long democratic periods at some moments in their history. Unlike Russia, which NEVER had such periods (except 1991-1999, to most extent). I told many times that historically Russian tradition is extremely conservative. The same can be said about main church, which increased it's influence since period of Communist rule,  army (important institute in Russia), and so on. So, again - IT WILL TAKE CONSIDERABLE TIME for democracy even to take more or less solid roots in Russia, as there is almost no basis for it in Russian society. The process will be slow, difficult and with considerble setbacks...

Well, that makes you a collaborator, part and parcel of the regime. Of course, in no way does it demonstrate your sanity: to most people this looks like greater insanity than that of the true putinists (they do not pretend that somehow their objective is a democracy in Russia: so, they, are, at least, coherent) . So you manifestly fail on your self-declared objective. Participation in this takes Russia away from actual democracy, not towards it. I am not arguing against opposition to the regime, for god's sake: it is just that what you are doing is collaboration.

As for relatively long periods of democracy pre-1980s in, say, Spain or Mexico... I know, I know, they do not teach foreign history in Russian schools properly, really, you are not to blame. Russia is a lot less unique than you believe: it is no worse, really, than the rest of the world And, if it is to get a democracy at some point, it will not get it in some unique Russian way.

To be fair, wasn't 80s Mexico more o less comparable to Russia today? I do know that early 20th century Spain was sort of like modern Russia but with even more rigged elections, especially outside the main cities.

He does have a point there. Especially in the comparison with Mexico which happened without any breaks I think.