Churov & Election 2012

The head of Russia’s Central Elections Commission Vladimir Churov came out to talk to Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) on Thursday.  He once again defended his role as Commissioner by claiming very little fraud occurred in the December Duma elections.

Churov also repeated his claim that they are preparing to install transparent ballot boxes in 30,000 polling stations across Russia for the March Presidential Elections.  This is only about 1/3 of all polling stations.  The Commission is also working on setting up webcams in “nearly all polling stations”, though Churov gave no indication of what “nearly all” actually equals to as a concrete number.

While Ekho Moskvy, and its audience, got nothing really new from the interview, it was interesting to witness the effort that the Kremlin is making to explain themselves.  Ekho Moskvy appeals to a very specific audience, the educated, liberal, middle class.  Many of its listeners are the same people who attended the mass meetings on Bolotnaya, and Sakharova in December.

But what does Churov’s interview mean for the coming Presidential election?  I am still not convinced that the Kremlin has decided on a strategy, but I have some ideas.

According to the most recent poll from VTsIOM, if the election had been held on 25 December 2011, Vladimir Putin would have gotten 45% of the vote.  Even though Putin’s next closest rival, Communist Party Leader Gennady Zyuganov, received only 10% of the vote, Putin would still be 6 percentage points under the required amount to prevent a run-off.

At this point, Putin, and his campaign team, have a few options.  They can stick with their current strategy, campaign mildly, and get the approximate amount the VTsIOM poll shows (give or take a couple points).  They would then be forced into a run-off with Zyuganov, where Putin would probably win in a landslide.

Another option would be to take a small win in the first round.  This would be something over 51%, but under 60%.  However, this is risky because of the amount of perceived fraud that took place in the Parliamentary elections last month.  A small win could be within an arguable margin of error, and lead to more protests.

The last option would be to take a large win in the first round (say 65%, for a round number).  This is also a risk because the larger win could be indicative of massive fraud, and could also force more protests.

As far as I can tell, these are the choices that are open.  Do you have other ideas?  What would you choose?

Covering Every Base

And Medvedev definitely just accomplished that by signing the Federal Law On Amendments to the Federal Law On Defence.

According to the Kremlin:

The amendment adds to the Federal Law On Defence a clause stating that, in accordance with the established rules and principles of international law, the international agreements to which the Russian Federation is party, and the Federal Law On Defence, Russian Federation Armed Forces units can be used in operations beyond Russia’s borders for the following purposes:

– to counter armed attacks against Russian Federation Armed forces, other troops and bodies deployed beyond Russia’s borders;

– to counter or prevent armed attack against another country if this country has so requested from the Russian Federation;

– to protect Russian citizens abroad from armed attack;

– to combat piracy and guarantee the safety of shipping.

The Federal Law On Defence is also supplemented by an article that, in accordance with the Russian Federation Constitution, sets out the procedures for a decision by the Russian President to use Russia’s armed forces units in operations beyond its borders.

The first point hits Crimea, and Georgia, and possibly some of the Central Asian republics.  The second point hits Byelorussia (hey, you never know when those Poles will attack, or rise up against the Byelorussians).  Third hits Georgia, and Crimea again, plus Moldova, and possibly the Baltics.  And the last covers Somalia, and Israel.

Like I said, they’ve got just about everybody here.

Update

on the annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly.  Press accreditation requests are due by Sunday night.  However, “The date, time and entry procedures for journalists accredited to cover the event will be announced later.”  Thanks a lot, guys!  How hard is it to post a date?

The Kremlin

has translated Medvedev’s speech to the leaders of the political parties.  They translated the quote about wearing black differently:

…I agreed to meet with you and discuss the results of elections to the legislative assemblies and local governments so that this does not become the so-called funeral of democracy and our electoral system, even though today I specially dressed in dark colours, in case you are in a kind of funeral mood.

Check out the full text here.

P.S. James over at Robert Amsterdam’s blog has more links to stories.