The Countdown Begins: Russia’s Presidential Election Season is Officially Underway
The presidential campaign has officially been launched in Russia. The elections will take place on March 18, 2018. It’s a busy season for the presidential candidates.
During the next three months, there will be party conventions and meetings of supporters. Our analyst Tatiana Remizova.
- Tatiana, how should we, the voters, prepare for the elections?
- Ernest, today, the CEC launched a countdown. 89 days and about 3 hours left until the vote. 97,000 polling stations will open across our country on March 18. The campaign expenses are estimated at 15 billion rubles.
The election calendar is full of events. Candidates will nominate themselves by January 7, party nominations by January 12, Canvassing begins on February 17.
A self-nominated candidate must get at least 300,000 voters' signatures. 100,000 are enough for a party. There's no need to gather signatures if the party is present in the parliament.
- How will they ensure the transparency of the elections? The opposition is constantly addressing the transparency issue.
- Ernest, the CEC claim that ballot-stuffing is highly unlikely. In addition to video surveillance, they have high-tech ballot boxes that no one can trick.
The elections are going to employ around 13,000 Ballot Paper Processing Complexes (BPPCs). Every third one is a new generation machine. A big sensor screen and a multi-layer hacker protection system. These BPPCs can't be hacked or reprogrammed. The complex is not connected to any info system and has no Wi-Fi access. "Please, insert a single ballot paper face up". If you try to trick the machine, a red mark appears at the back side of their ballot paper, making it invalid.
Ella Panfilova, head of the CEC: "I would really like for people not to ignore the elections, sit at home, and then complain about the wrong government, but actually come. It's important that we have direct elections and there's no middleman between a voter and a candidate".
- Current president Putin has announced his intention to run for president. He's a self-nominated candidate. The parties will nominate Grigory Yavlinsky Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Ksenia Sobchak.
According to the CEC, 23 candidates have announced their intention to run for president.
- Soon we'll know their names. Thank you, Tatiana.
Our analyst, Tatiana Remizova.