Three supporting candidates for Putin’s re-election

A communist, an ultranationalist and a supposed liberal are the three candidates allowed by the Kremlin to compete, with no chance of success, in this weekend’s presidential elections in Russia against the sure winner: Vladimir Putin.

None of them has the slightest chance in the presidential elections on the 15th, 16th and 17th, but their presence on the ballots is vital to confer formal legitimacy to the electoral process.

Unlike 2018, when there were eight candidates, this time the opposition to the Kremlin does not have any candidate to support, since they are all in favor of the war in Ukraine.

Kharitonov, a seasoned candidate

A 75-year-old communist, Nikolai Kharitonov is not new to these issues. In 2004 he was appointed to compete with Putin in the elections in which the head of the Kremlin was re-elected for the first time.

Got the 13.6% of the votes, the worst result obtained until then by a communist candidate.“We were playing capitalism, enough is enough,” says the veteran politician now in his electoral capsule.

He promises to lower the retirement age, increase the minimum wage, reduce taxes and nationalize foreign assets, major banks and companies in key sectors of the economy.

Kharitonov supports the military campaign in Ukraine and declares that the only way to conclude it is with ““crushing defeat of Ukraine”.

Former president of a sovkhoz (Soviet state agricultural company) in Western Siberia, he maintains that “Russia has only two allies: its Army and its Navy,” a sentence pronounced in his time by Tsar Alexander III.

Slutski, under the shadow of Zhirinovski

The leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Leonid Slutsky, 56, is running in the elections under the long shadow of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the charismatic founder of the party, who died in April 2022 during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Zhirinovsky’s cause is alive,” It is stated in Slutski’s electoral billboards, a clear attempt to take advantage of the pull that the disappeared ultranationalist leader had and that mimics the Soviet slogan “Lenin’s cause is alive.”

Vice President of the State Duma, doctor in Economics, supports the Russian military campaign in Ukraine, which he has described as “decisive geopolitical struggle against Nazism, which must be won”.

In February 2018, several female journalists accused Slutski of sexual harassment and the politician, who was supported by many of his peers, reported being the victim of a provocation and an attempt to turn him into the Russian Harvey Weinstein.

“I want to apologize to those girls in the most sincere way if I said or did something that hurt them,” he later stated.

Davankov, a new face

The candidate of Gente Nueva, a center-right party of a proclaimed liberal nature created in 2020, is the youngest of the candidates and, according to a survey that gives Putin the winner with the 75% of the votes, could be placed in second place with the 6% of the votes.

Businessman and deputy since 2021, Vladislav Davankov, 40, has become the visible face of a party that according to the extra-parliamentary opposition emerged with the permission of the Kremlin.

His rise began in 2018 when he was appointed deputy director of the non-profit organization ‘Russia, a country of opportunities’, created at Putin’s initiative to promote various national projects.

Five years later, he was a candidate in the Moscow mayoral elections, in which he won. 5.3% of the votes.

Promoter in the Duma of laws such as the one prohibiting sex change, Davankov defines himself as a defender of traditional values.

“War is human victims, sanctions, the dollar at 150 rubles, rising food prices. In Russia 16 million people live below the poverty line. Are we willing to have more?” he stated before the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

Two days before the start of war actions, on February 22, 2022, Davankov defended the recognition of the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

“The president (Putin) made the right decision. Democracy is when we argue and debate until a decision is made. But once the decision is made, you have to act.”he said then.

Regarding the conflict in Ukraine, his program is categorical: “Peace and negotiations. But on our terms, no turning back.”

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