The perils of predictability: Why Putin’s tightening grip on election results will backfire

It may seem intuitive that autocrats and unfree elections are the best of friends. And Vladimir Putin left nothing to chance in his fifth re-election as Russia’s president in May,  when he secured 87 per cent vote of the vote. For an electoral autocracy such as Russia this level of certainty is nothing out of the ordinary. Nationwide elections serve primarily to lend procedural legitimacy and a democratic image on the world stage.

Regional and municipal elections, however, are typically more contested and provide Russian authorities with valuable signals of public sentiment. Without this, they cannot address resentment until it’s out on the streets. And without opposition in parliament, some who are against the Putin regime are pushed towards other more disruptive tactics. Counterintuitively, complete autocratic zealousness could therefore spell the regime’s undoing.

Russia’s recent gubernatorial races threaten to do just that.

Fabricating success

Kremlin-affiliated candidates won in all 21 regions with many securing over two-thirds of the vote. Just as predictably, the ruling United Russia (UR) party triumphed in all 13 regions up for grabs. In the past, local elections have been more contested, however. Just last September other parliamentary parties managed to secure gubernatorial positions or prevent UR from forming a majority in some regional parliaments. But, in the third year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, any semblance of genuine competition has been eliminated. Not even the “systemic opposition” – parliamentary parties that generally back the presidential course, including the war, while pushing for some changes in economic and social policies – are able to secure a win. Back in 2019, candidates affiliated with UR won 25 out of 45 seats in Moscow’s regional parliament. Last week, the number increased to 40.

Such an unbelievable victory for UR can be traced back to another, more believable, development. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the presidential administration has intensified its use of two additional tactics, supplementing standard election fraud and manipulation, to establish absolute control over electoral outcomes.

First, the administration expanded the grounds for disqualifying candidates from elections by prohibiting  individuals designated as “foreign agents”. Currently, over 1,000 people in Russia hold foreign agent status, including opposition politicians, journalists, and dissidents. Before this ban was enacted, these “foreign agents” had been preparing to run en masse in Moscow’s parliamentary election. But the risk of disqualification has led even systemic opposition to act cautiously, opting not to register candidates in constituencies where they could challenge government-backed candidates. As a result, this year’s regional elections were the least competitive in terms of registered party lists and candidates since 2012, when Putin returned to the presidency.

The second and more concerning tool isremote electronic voting (REV). The manipulation of paper ballots is inherently limited – one cannot discreetly stuff over half the votes. With REV, however, there is no limit to direct manipulation – such as electronically rewriting and stuffing votes as the encryption keys remain solely under the control of authorities.

Moscow has been leading in the switch to REV. In the past, REV has been instrumental in preventing opposition candidates from winning and artificially inflating turnout. In the recent regional election, the capital became the first region to conduct elections entirely electronically. All voters were defaulted to online voting, with the option to use a paper ballot only available through a special advance application, of which many were denied. Recorded turnout reached around 40 per cent, compared to an average of 20-22 per cent in previous elections. Of the 3.1 million Muscovites who voted, 3 million did so electronically. Because Moscow often serves as a testing ground for the Kremlin’s new tactics, a complete transition to REV is plausible by the end of Putin’s current term.

There’s such a thing as too many votes

Before such high levels of interference, a poor performance by the ruling party would signal to the Kremlin that additional resources may be needed to stabilise the situation. For example, through increased budgetary spending, repression of opposition, or by replacing the incumbent with more a popular figure. This feedback mechanism is crucial to the stability of an electoral autocracy – timely implementation often keeps social tensions and protests at bay. Regional elections would also allow for limited, controlled competition from political opposition, so the regime could identify the most threatening elements, which can then be either repressed or co-opted. Without knowing how popular an opposition figure is, the regime is less able to gauge the level of societal resentment and address it.

So, while complete electoral victory may sound comforting to Putin, the erosion of any genuine contest in regional elections – thanks to REV and the disqualification of candidates – leaves him without his autocratic toolkit. In other words, the regime may appear stronger on the electoral map, but a lack of contest ultimately makes it more fragile because it cannot accurately identify or address the opposition that does exist.

While complete electoral victory may sound comforting to Putin, the erosion of any genuine contest in regional elections – thanks to REV and the disqualification of candidates – leaves him without his autocratic toolkit

First, the unrestricted ability to alter results via REV nullifies the signalling function of local elections, which the Kremlin has previously exploited. For example, in 2018, gubernatorial candidates from UR unexpectedly lost in several regions to representatives of the systemic opposition. This loss alerted to the Kremlin that it had underestimated public dissatisfaction with the pension reform, particularly in regions where the Communist Party or others had organised protests against raising the retirement age. In response, before the next federal election, the Kremlin co-opted some opponents and repressed others.

Second, REV also increases the administration’s ability to mobilise state-dependent voters – that is, officials and employees of public institutions and large enterprises reliant on government procurement – who are now simply asked to submit screenshots of their voting results or are compelled to vote directly at their workplaces. Because REV makes it harder to avoid voting or voting for an opposition, there is less need for the administration to maintain the complex mobilisation networks, often build around bribery, that exist to convince state-dependent voters to vote for UR. In other words, by making patronage networks redundant, the regime is inadvertently providing less reasons for support. Even if this doesn’t show up in electoral results, it can have grave impacts. For example, in 2005, the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections led to the degradation of certain mobilisation networks. This contributed to UR’s poor performance in the 2011 elections and the largest wave of protests in modern Russian history.

Finally, expanding REV as well as the grounds for candidate disqualification will erode the systemic opposition. The ability for the presidential administration to rewrite regional election results and inflate the UR’s performance will reduce the political resources available to other parliamentary parties. In particular, REV is frequently used to reverse outcomes in districts where strong systemic opposition politicians challenge the authorities. This erosion could lead to the strongest politicians from the systemic opposition joining non-systemic forces, and eventually, it could mean the dismantling of parliamentary opposition parties in Russia. This may be a step towards the Kremlin’s de-partisation of the political system, similar to Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus, potentially leading to the complete replacement of parliamentary elections by party lists with elections by single-mandate districts. As seen in Belarus, this could lead to sweeping protests, making the regime more fragile and reducing the autocrat’s only pillar of power to repression.

The weakening of local elections’ signalling function, the increasing redundance mobilisation networks, and the erosion of the systemic opposition are consequences the Kremlin faces as it seeks establish full control over election results. By the end of Putin’s term, this strategy could reduce the regime’s political toolkit for managing risks, making it more vulnerable and less adaptable to unexpected events – such as the Prigozhin mutiny or protests by the wives of mobilised soldiers. 

Consequently, the regime’s collapse could occur abruptly rather than gradually, a scenario for which Western countries and the Russian opposition in exile should be prepared.