Russian Election – One Month after Navalny’s Death
By: Anna Juell Johnsen
Mar 15, 2024
This week’s graph shows the decline in freedom from political killings and freedom of peaceful assembly in Russia after President Vladimir Putin first took office in 2000.
The Russian presidential election takes place on March 17. Vladimir Putin is expected to be reelected. Most opposition is in jail or exile, and candidates critical to the war in Ukraine have been banned from running, with Boris Nadezhdin being the last to be disqualified.
The elections take place a month after the death of the opposition politician Alexander Navalny. He died suddenly in one of Russia’s highest security level prisons, where he was serving a 19-year sentence. Navalny was the latest in a long list of politicians, journalists, and activists perishing during Putin’s reign.
The steady decrease of freedom from political killings and peaceful assembly in this week’s graph reflects the continuous erosion of democratic institutions and freedoms in Putin’s Russia.
