Gilbert Doctorow — Russia’s Presidential Election, 2018: first impressions ~ Mike Norman Economics

Friday, February 23, 2018

Gilbert Doctorow — Russia’s Presidential Election, 2018: first impressions

This is the first of three election reports which the author will publish in the coming month culminating in his findings as an officially invited international observer to the 18 March elections.

Detailed report on all candidates except Putin, who is well-known and expected to win handily.

Putin's only credible challenger seems to be Communist Party candidate, Pavel Grudinin. He is not a Communist Party member himself, but is being put forward as a unifying choice for the Left.

However, Grudinin is focused on domestic issues and has no foreign policy experience. He says he will continue the present foreign policy. But Russians are very focused on foreign affairs, so this is a big liability for Grudinin's candidacy.

Worth a read, if just to counter the misinformation in the Western media that focuses on liberal aspirants that have minuscule appeal to Russian voters. Liberal parties have no presence in the Duma, either. Russia is a conservative and traditionalist country. Even the left is socially conservative and traditionalist.

Une parole franche
Russia’s Presidential Election, 2018: first impressions
Gilbert Doctorow | European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd.

See also

See also

The website of a network of the presidential election’s public monitors, which posts latest reports on violations during the Russian presidential election, reported more than 70 hacker attacks over recent 12 hours, the project’s coordinator Roman Kolomoitsev told TASS on Friday.

"Over recent 12 hours, nom24.ru, which aggregates reports of all violations and the recent information on the election, was attacked more than 70 times," he said.

According to the originating IP-addresses, "the hacker attacks came from Sweden and the Netherlands," he continued. "We have managed to stop quite promptly those attacks."
NOM is Russia’s biggest network of independent monitors. Its target is to structure a fundamentally new infrastructure for honest and transparent elections.

TASS
Election’s public monitors report 70 hacker attacks on their site

also