That is exactly what I was talking about yesterday, answering the question "How should we view the 2018 presidential election?"
It is impossible to treat this as a real election if candidate access is once again tightly controlled. But it is also impossible to ignore it by simply staying home. These kind of "elections" must be actively opposed—for example, through a mass boycott campaign.
Just read about the meeting between the new official in charge of domestic policy and Kiriyenko:
A bunch of nobodies are sitting around discussing how to run an election with no competition, while still getting turnout. And how to make sure Putin gets 84%, but not 93%—that would look a bit ugly. And to have Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov there, but give the old guys a helping hand, because they are getting on in years and might not manage on their own.
Just wonderful.
The Kremlin has already set the parameters of the upcoming campaign.
Naturally, they have no doubt that Putin will win, but they want a victory with turnout not at 25% (St. Petersburg, 2016) or 35% (Moscow, 2016), but at least 55%.
At the same time, real competition—and even real criticism during the campaign—must be ruled out. To achieve that, only those willing to play along with the foreign-policy agenda will be allowed onto the ballot: the Banderites (a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainian nationalists) are advancing, Aleppo must be taken. Not a word about how an HIV epidemic was officially declared in Yekaterinburg.
To avoid the inevitable catastrophic collapse in turnout in major cities, they are looking for a controllable "nominally liberal candidate." Someone like Prokhorov last time. Someone who will talk about a European path and business, but will not run an active campaign, will not make it personal, and will be ready to fall silent and disappear at the first snap of the fingers.
Like that strange and comical "American journalist Michael Bohm," who appears on TV talk shows as the "voice of the democratic public."
This deception is obvious and plain to see; however, experience shows that tricks like these have been working perfectly well for 15 years. Whether we are willing to be deceived and go vote for Michael Bohm is a question for us alone.