JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s 2024 Presidential Election: What to Know” – New York Times

“[Russia’s] presidential vote … begins Friday and lasts through Sunday … but is more of a predetermined, Soviet-style referendum. … Putin, 71, will undoubtedly win a fifth term, with none of the three other candidates … permitted on the ballot presenting a real challenge. The main opposition figure who worked to spoil the vote, Aleksei A. Navalny, a harsh critic of [] Putin and the Ukraine war, died in an Arctic prison last month. … [T]he vote is significant for [] Putin as a way to cement his legitimacy and refurbish his preferred image as the embodiment of security and stability. That image was tarnished when the war, advertised as a speedy operation to topple the government in Kyiv, turned into a slog that caused hundreds of thousands of casualties, ruptured relations with the West and ushered in harsher domestic repression. … Since he was first appointed successor to … Yeltsin in 2000, [] Putin has said Russia’s Constitution would dictate the length of his tenure. Then he kept rewriting the Constitution. …”

Click here for: “Russia’s 2024 Presidential Election: What to Know” – New York Times: Neil MacFarquhar