Putin calls legislative elections for September 20

BarcelonaRussian President Vladimir Putin has called for legislative elections on September 20. For the first time, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia, the four Ukrainian provinces annexed by Moscow, will be able to vote in Duma elections. All four had already participated in the last elections in which Putin was re-elected.

The news comes at a time of low popularity for Putin and the Kremlin's party, according to all polls. The voting intention for the ruling party, United Russia, has fallen in recent months below 30% and is approaching the historic low of 26.4% in August 2021. The population is increasingly fed up with the war, which they experience in the form of drone attacks but also rising prices of basic goods and internet outages.

Meanwhile, the opposition, especially the New People party, has risen in the polls by openly opposing measures promoted by Putin, such as slowing down the internet or restricting social media. The Russian leader justifies these measures with the argument that they contribute to ensuring the security of Russian citizens against Ukrainian attacks, but several experts have repeatedly pointed out that the effectiveness of Kyiv's drones is not linked to the population's use of the internet.

For now, United Russia has not announced its electoral program. The country's independent press has been warning for months that Putin's party has a very difficult time renewing its constitutional majority without the authorities manipulating the election results. However, Putin's party has often benefited from low turnout, especially in large cities, due to the refusal of many critical Russians to go to the polls.

The repression of the opposition also plays an important role in the results of Putin's party in electoral calls in recent years. One example is Yabloko, the most legally critical party with the Kremlin – which has opposed the war against Ukraine since 2022 – and which has suffered extensive persecution from the Russian authorities. Many of its activists have been imprisoned, detained, or labeled as foreign agents or extremists, which prevents them from running in elections.