Elections as a test of the system: what Putin failed to do and what the protesters demonstrated
Constitutional law expert Nina Belyaeva discusses the presidential elections and the implications for the Russian autocracy's fifth term.
Especially for NeMoskva, a former professor at the Higher School of Economics analyzed the signals the Kremlin and civil society received following the recent elections.
According to Nina BelyaevaThe government's behavior suggests that the regime will tighten, become more rigid, and enter a period of stagnation. At the same time, a new protest group, which has already emerged and made its presence known during the election campaign, will grow in Russia.
Nina Belyaeva is a professor, lawyer, and public policy analyst.
From 2000 to 2022, she worked at the Higher School of Economics, where she founded the Department of Public Policy. She was an OSCE expert on freedom of peaceful assembly.
She has taught at universities in the United States, Italy, France, and South Africa. She specializes in public policy analysis and the relationship between civil society and the state.
He currently lives in Georgia, where he is creating a new educational community – the International Nomad University.
Elections for an autocrat
In democratic societies, elections help ensure rotation of ruling elites and the replacement of ineffective leaders.
In autocracies, where the leader remains unchanged for many years and can send any opponent to prison, elections also serve a whole range of important functions.
The simplest and most obvious is that they give the autocrat an opportunity to legitimize himself and demonstrate that the people love him, support him, and agree with his policies and state ideology. In this way, the leader once again demonstrates his strength and influence to the country's residents and the world at large, demonstrating that his regime is stable and strong.
Moreover—and this is most important—elections help monitor the functioning of the governance system and assess its viability. They are a kind of test, a check on a huge number of links, which can be quite autonomous and not always work in concert.
In this regard, elections help evaluate the performance of officials, public sector employees, members of parliament, security forces, journalists, representatives of religious organizations, and so on. They also test the loyalty of representatives of a wide range of elites, including governors and mayors, large business owners, show business stars, and simply prominent public figures and opinion leaders. Elections give an autocrat an idea of who makes up his support group and how effective it is.
All this new knowledge helps the system answer a host of crucial questions. First and foremost: can it continue to survive in this state? And what must it do to preserve itself?
Following the elections, ineffective mechanisms can be replaced with effective ones: new people can be appointed, institutions can be eliminated or created. New elites can be introduced. Old views can be reconsidered.
The regime itself chooses which path to take.
He can adapt to the existing reality, find answers to new challenges, change, become more flexible and adequate.
Or, conversely, it can harden and become entrenched. This is when the system leaves behind dysfunctional links because there's nothing left to replace them with. Or it doesn't know how to replace them. So they consolidate what exists. And if loyalty is low, they begin to suppress dissent through force. This effectively freezes everything, leading to further stagnation in everything from the economy to the administrative apparatus.
Finally, if after elections the interests of the main elites cannot be secured and the behavior of key social groups cannot be shaped, the system begins to falter. Popular discontent spills over into covert sabotage or even open protest. Some elements become increasingly dysfunctional or even cease to function, but they remain within the system, remaining within it. As a result, internal conflicts begin to mount, and, in my view, the most dangerous thing happens: the system becomes unbalanced and can collapse, unable to manage the political process and the country.
How I helped Putin
I was Putin's trusted person during his first elections in 2000 and helped the headquarters.
I was invited there as the leader of an election monitoring coalition called "We, the Citizens!" that operated in 70 regions. We trained people to monitor elections, work at precinct election commissions, collaborated with the Central Election Commission, brought and won cases against electoral violations, and annulled results. Back then, elections were still a reality, as was citizen participation in them.
I volunteered at Putin's headquarters - and I was officially They were tasked with collecting any criticism: regarding the work of the electoral system, government structures, and other vital issues.
Our coalition proposed a unique way to gather criticism while simultaneously engaging people in solving social problems—"mandates" for the presidential candidate. Regional activists on duty during the elections asked citizens what was wrong, what they could do to address the problem, and what they needed from the government.
Then, all of this was discussed at a regional meeting and formalized as "instructions." These weren't just complaints like "the roof's leaking," but rather systemic problems in the city or a specific organization that the regional committee itself considered important and formulated an action plan to address them.
I remember, for example, a letter from a student at RUDN University in Moscow: "We have corruption here; professors like these take bribes. I can organize data collection with other students, but we don't want to be kicked out, but rather have these complaints heard and action taken."
In total, about two hundred such orders were collected across the regions.
At the start of the election campaign, all of Putin's trusted representatives were gathered in a large hall for a meeting with Putin; there were about 300-400 of us. From the list of participants they handed out, I remember a very large number of Muslim names, as well as athletes, artists, and businessmen. And about half of that list consisted of people from public organizations.
No one viewed the meeting with candidate Putin as anything particularly important—it was all quite mundane. A new person had simply come to power, different from the old one, under whom the system had truly failed. The mood was: let's see what he can do, let's get involved and help him, because he's new and doesn't know the social situation, while we, the grassroots activists, do.
In the end, the coalition activists compiled a substantial folder of instructions for the candidate, including criticism and suggestions. I personally handed it to Putin at the election results reception in the Kremlin Palace. Incidentally, there was no caviar at that table: only some pies and cold cuts. Putin gave me the usual "thank you for your work," took the folder, and immediately handed it to Surkov, who was standing nearby.
Later, I was also involved in working on his first address to the Federal Assembly. That is, the administration invited various experts to formulate their views on various issues, and then distilled them and selected the most relevant ones. One of the main ideas back then was civic oversight. We developed an entire system of civic participation in the analysis of documents and laws adopted by the state. And if you remember Putin's first texts as a presidential candidate, he spoke of the need to build civil society, develop democratic institutions, and hold officials accountable. He called on civic organizations to come to government bodies, talk about problems, and propose solutions.
Putin called on activists to engage with the authorities, and many, of course, rushed to do so. As a result, the Presidential Administration, through their efforts, compiled a list of pressing issues and demands from citizens.
After we did this, all the love ended. The system began to close. Genuine civil activists quickly went into opposition to the government, while those who had been bribed remained with it forever, forming the core of the People's Fronts and United Russia.
Option number two
The ability to adapt to reality is the first and most important sign of a “smart” autocracy.
The 2024 presidential elections in Russia showed that the regime is not ready to adapt.
It seems to me that one of the most important indicators of his fear of reality was the exclusion of Boris Nadezhdin and Ekaterina Duntsova. Had the system allowed them to participate, it would have been able to gauge the level of their support and obtain a more or less accurate picture of the public mood.
It's no secret that all regimes end sooner or later. Previously, this was usually accompanied by revolutions. In the 21st century, developed societies prefer regime change nonviolently, through negotiations. In some cases, such negotiations even help an autocrat partially retain power. But to achieve this, one must know who exactly to negotiate with and give these "negotiators" a chance to shine.
Elections are held to identify new leaders and the support system behind them. This helps structure the socio-political landscape, pave the way for meaningful dialogue, and identify in advance those with whom to negotiate in the event of force majeure.
Why did the government abandon this option?
Perhaps because even before the elections, a harsh decision was made to suppress any alternative position, rather than to adapt.
Moreover, I'm sure the option of involving alternative candidates was also considered. The Kremlin is a complex structure. The Presidential Administration has dozens of departments, each with its own ideas about what's happening in the country and how to respond. I'm not even mentioning Putin's personal circle of friends—they're a separate center of influence.
During the elections, the regime demonstrated that it was not interested in fully testing the system.
And if we also take into account the level of falsification, then the conclusion suggests itself that the test results were deliberately spoiled.
You know, it can be compared to a situation when a person is having an electrocardiogram done, and meanwhile he is tapping on the sensors to “improve the result.” This is stupid from any point of view.
Of the two options for responding to the election results – adapting to the challenges or cementing a dysfunctional system – the authorities appear to have chosen option number two.
A chance for the protesting public
Another entity that can benefit from elections is the citizens themselves.
Even in an autocracy, voting is essential. I agree with Ekaterina Shulman that participating in elections helps "flex the civic muscle."
Moreover, in today's Russia, elections, even completely staged ones, are essentially the only permitted means of any kind of political participation. Therefore, it is imperative to take advantage of them.
Even if we know the outcome is predetermined, there's still a formal choice: cast your vote for anyone but the dictator. Demonstrate your disagreement with the system. Send it a signal that likely won't be reflected in the official results, won't be shown, and won't be published anywhere. But the system will receive this signal, and polling station staff will see who people are really voting for.
Finally, elections give citizens the opportunity to see like-minded people, to act as "living witnesses" to fraud, and to gain so-called sensory life experience: to see everything with their own eyes!
It's precisely because of this last point that few believe the Central Election Commission's data claiming that the incumbent president won by a landslide and achieved unprecedented public consolidation. People witnessed police ejecting independent observers, peering over voters' shoulders, ballot stuffing, and lines of dissenting voices forming outside polling stations at midday on March 17.
Through the multitude of videos filmed by ordinary citizens, spreading across social media like wildfire, everyone saw clearly and reliably how a new protest audience had formed and made its presence known. Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions for Duntsova and Nadezhdin, came out to honor Navalny, participated in the "Noon Against Putin" rally, or voted for Davankov as the only supposedly "anti-war candidate" (obviously, he's not anti-war, but he's what he is).
All these people with protest sentiments were there before, but only thanks to the elections were they finally able to see each other and unite as a public.
We have witnessed the rebirth of the concept of the protest public, which was so clearly evident in the Bolotnaya Square protests of 2011-2012. However, the public of 2024 has its own characteristics: it is "flickering." That is, it doesn't march in protests or stand for days at thousands-strong rallies. It is a fluid, changeable public: it emerges for a specific reason, for a specific action, and then just as abruptly disappears. Then it emerges again and disappears again.
Moreover, specific collective actions of a protest nature achieve results: the protesting public becomes visible, it forms politically significant symbols, presents its demands and becomes the subject of political action.
Look at how candidate Duntsova emerged: yesterday, no one knew about her, and today she says she's against the war, and bam—a crowd of people immediately gathers at her words, a huge support website opens, and an entire congress is held to nominate her for president. President! For the sole reason of expressing her anti-war stance!
Isn’t this a political sign to the regime?
Or how they collected signatures for Nadezhdin. While the candidate's campaign team was pondering where to get money, how to rent offices, and find signature collectors, proactive individuals in the regions themselves declared, "We're here, let's collect signatures ourselves." This, incidentally, is unprecedented in Russia.
It should also be noted that the elections significantly consolidated the anti-war opposition abroad. The fact that candidate Davankov won in the majority of polling stations abroad is proof of this. And it doesn't even matter who the candidate was: there couldn't be any non-Kremlin candidates in these elections. What was important was to demonstrate initiative, and they did: that among the Russians who had left, an alternative candidate who had at least said something against the war was winning.
New normal
For an autocrat, elections are not just a way to test the system. Sometimes they are also a risk.
Judging by what we have seen, Putin took this risk in vain: the 87 percent he presented to the public was achieved through such a degree of pressure, propaganda, and even outright violence that they worked against the candidate.
If we talk about the real results of the elections, they are as follows.
Firstly, even to uninitiated voters, official election results increasingly diverge from the actual practices they witnessed with their own eyes. This level of fraud has perhaps never been recorded before: there's a huge gap between what people see and discuss and what television is trying to sell them.
Secondly, we saw that the official state propaganda efforts to build social unity and citizen cohesion around the president were unsuccessful.
Third, the level of violence necessary to maintain legitimacy has increased. As it turns out, legitimacy itself doesn't work without the involvement of police and the FSB. The role of law enforcement agencies in these elections has been publicly exposed; we've all seen it. And these aren't just local excesses, but a new norm: 1,500 complaints against voters who "violated electoral law," nearly 60 criminal cases for arson attacks on polling stations, and for pouring green paint into ballot boxes (an entirely new trend).
Fourth, the system has completely rejected even the mildest forms of citizen oversight over elections, distorting the meaning of full voter participation. Elections have become a poorly orchestrated ritual, where any deviation from the script is harshly punished.
Now the electoral system is a "transmission belt from the party to the masses." People are essentially forced to polling stations, forced under police supervision to tick the right box, and then forced to take a photo with it to report to their supervisors. And the supervisors, in turn, report to their superiors for these "correct votes": they have once again become part of a unified power system.
Preliminary results
Did Putin manage to demonstrate his strength and test the system of governance as a result of these elections?
Maybe yes.
Have you managed to demonstrate your legitimacy and gain trust?
I don't think so. Because the complete inadequacy of the precinct election commission leaders' behavior, as well as the artificiality and "staged nature" of their loyal behavior, are obvious. And there is no such thing as "formal trust" in politics: trust either exists, or it doesn't.
I'm not saying Putin has lost the levers of power. But I do see that he has lost credibility: instead of the expected rise, his level of legitimacy has actually declined. This was precisely due to falsifications, violations, pressure on public sector employees, commission members, and so on. Everyone has realized the price these "victory figures" had to pay. It's clear to those who "forged this victory," too. And this, too, doesn't strengthen their trust in the government.
Along with the decline in trust in Putin, we have seen a rise in anti-war and protest sentiment. This is extremely dangerous for authoritarianism, which relies on submission, fear, and silence.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. It's perfectly clear that protest exists in Russia; it hasn't gone anywhere. But this protest is no longer so demonstrative: it has transformed, become more covert and inventive. It will now manifest itself in a variety of forms, as it always has in harsh autocracies: from secret symbols to jokes and memes. It's hard to even imagine how exactly this protest will manifest itself, but it will definitely exist.
Moreover, this is a growing protest. Take, for example, the actions of the "Road Home" movement or the Feminist Anti-War Resistance. The former have already come up with the idea of using the "untouchable symbols of the regime" for their own ends: for example, they regularly lay flowers at the graves of unknown soldiers, thereby highlighting the enormous losses in the war.
Finally, another important indicator of the results of these elections: the active work of independent sources of information, which the authorities were unable to block (despite all their efforts and persecution of journalists).
Independent media are gaining increasing influence, something that even state propagandists themselves acknowledge with alarm.
There are currently two scenarios for how the situation will develop further.
Pessimistic: the regime will become tougher and move towards repression.
The optimistic scenario is that political analysts will ultimately be able to convince political leaders to adapt to the new reality, where trust in leaders is significantly declining. They will be able to take protest sentiments into account, include representatives of various forms of protest in the decision-making system, and initiate dialogue.
I believe in the optimistic scenario because autocrats always have strong think tanks that know everything and monitor everything. At all times, there are people in power who know how to obtain data, evaluate, and think.
If the autocracy does not change and continues to ignore signals from below about the need for change, everything could end, more or less, as always – with an explosion.
