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- The Kremlin deploys multiple levers at government, polling, and everyday levels to influence electoral outcomes.
- Limiting which candidates appear on the ballot is the most powerful tool to preclude genuine opposition.
- The Central Election Commission and courts enforce exclusions, shrinking political competition.
- The Yabloko party was removed from the ballot by the Supreme Court after a lawsuit from pro‑Kremlin Rodina, citing alleged copyright, foreign funding, and extremism.
- Disqualifications target anti‑war and youth-supported movements, ensuring controlled, predictable results for the ruling authorities.
And this year’s vote, says David Szakonyi, an expert on Russia and election fraud who is professor at George Washington University, is “occurring in the most repressive political environment in Russia’s post-Soviet history.”
Here’s what experts have to say about how the Kremlin ensures elections result in its desired outcome—and why it continues to hold them.
Restricting opposition
The Kremlin uses multiple levers to influence elections on the government level, at the polls, and in daily civilian life, according to Szakonyi.
“Without a doubt, the most powerful tool” in the Kremlin’s arsenal, Szakonyi says, is limiting which candidates appear on the ballot in the first place.
In the case of the ongoing parliamentary vote, the one anti-war party that was registered by the Central Election Commission, the Yabloko party, was prohibited from participating in the election by Russia’s Supreme Court. The high court ordered that the party be removed from the ballot last month in response to a lawsuit from the pro-Kremlin Rodina party that accused the Yabloko party, which has garnered support from young Russians and those opposed to the war in Ukraine, of copyright infringement, receiving foreign funding, and extremism.
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