Category Archives: Elections

NY Dispatches: What we know and what we don’t

Posted on January 27, 2020 by

The past two weeks have seen seemingly transformative political developments happen at a breathtaking speed in Russia. Vladimir Putin proposed a series of constitutional reforms. In a little more than a week those reforms were spelled out in a draft … Continue reading →

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Putin’s endgame

Posted on January 16, 2020 by

Vladimir Putin unveiled a set of sweeping constitutional amendments, Dmitry Medvedev’s government resigned, Russia’s new prime minister is a little-known tax official and Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov is “temporarily incapacitated”. And all of this happened within a couple of hours. … Continue reading →

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United they stand

Posted on December 22, 2019 by

The ruling United Russia’s congress in November seemed to confirm that Russia’s leaders intend to rely on the party in the early 2020s as Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term draws to an end. This was significant because recent years have … Continue reading →

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Alexander the Reluctant

Posted on November 21, 2019 by

Belarus’s parliamentary election last week got barely any attention, even though the vote was a rehearsal for next year’s presidential election, in which Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, will run for a sixth term. This coming election may tell … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: the popularity of governors

Posted on November 13, 2019 by

A recent hike in the overall popularity of Russia’s governors tells an important story. But not necessarily the one that many have highlighted.

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NY Dispatches: crackdown on Navalny

Posted on October 19, 2019 by

Recent weeks saw the Russian authorities conducting an unprecedented crackdown on Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, which included labeling it as a “foreign agent”. Below I am trying to answer the questions of what triggered this crackdown and whether the goal … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: the limits of smart voting

Posted on September 11, 2019 by

Russia held local and regional elections on Sunday. While in Moscow where the election was preceded by weeks of protests over disqualified opposition candidates and police brutality, United Russia lost one-third of its deputies in the Municipal Assembly (including a … Continue reading →

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