Putin's sham election

Ahead of Russia's farce of an election, state television aired a menacing get-out-the-vote commercial. A pregnant young woman stands in her modest kitchen, chopping vegetables and asking her husband about his day — did he remember to get groceries? Yes. Did he remember to vote? No, he shrugs, saying, "What difference does it make?" The ad suddenly shifts into horror-film mode, the lights flickering, the music ominous. The wife advances slowly toward him, brandishing her kitchen knife. She lists off all the wonderful things the Kremlin has promised for the future that they will lose if he doesn't vote — child payments, subsidized loans — and chases him out of the apartment. Off he runs to the polls, just in time. It's an entertaining spot, funny in the way of Russian black humor, but there's a subliminal message in it, too. Vote, or face violence. 

Why would Vladimir Putin bother trying to motivate voters? The outcome here was a foregone conclusion, since the candidates ostensibly running against him were Kremlin-picked non-entities who didn't even campaign against him. But holding an election allows him to pretend that Russia is a democracy, that his people support him, that his rule is legitimate. This year, with the war in Ukraine dragging on and killing tens of thousands of Russian soldiers each month, the regime resorted to new measures to compel turnout, extending the balloting for three days and introducing electronic voting. Public-sector employees were ordered to bring others with them to the polls. Coerced into voting, Russia's beleaguered opposition managed to turn the act into a protest: They showed up, but all at the same time on the final day, a silent display of defiance. While such a protest does nothing to weaken Putin's repressive hold on Russia, it shows that there is a flicker of dissent that Putin hasn't been able to snuff out.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

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