2012 Russian presidential election in the context of "Putin's rise to power"

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Russia from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. He has been described as the de facto leader of Russia since 2000.

Putin worked as a KGB foreign intelligence officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He resigned in 1991 to begin a political career in Saint Petersburg. In 1996, he moved to Moscow to join the administration of President Boris Yeltsin. He briefly served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and then as secretary of the Security Council of Russia before being appointed prime minister in August 1999. Following Yeltsin's resignation, Putin became acting president and, less than four months later in May 2000, was elected to his first term as president. He was reelected in 2004. Due to constitutional limitations on two consecutive presidential terms, Putin served as prime minister again from 2008 to 2012 under Dmitry Medvedev. He returned to the presidency in 2012, following an election marked by allegations of fraud and protests, and was reelected in 2018.

The 2011–2013 Russian protests, which some English language media referred to as the Snow Revolution (Russian: Снежная революция, romanized: Snezhnaya revolyutsiya), began in 2011 (as protests against the 2011 Russian legislative election results) and continued into 2012 and 2013. The protests were motivated by claims of Russian and foreign journalists, political activists and members of the public that the election process was fraudulent. The Central Election Commission of Russia stated that 195 out of 1,686 official reports of fraud (11.5%) could be confirmed as true.

On 10 December 2011, after a week of small-scale demonstrations, Russia saw some of the biggest protests in Moscow since the 1990s. The focus of the protests were the ruling party, United Russia, and its leader Vladimir Putin, the prime minister and former president, who announced his intention to run for president again in 2012. Another round of large protests took place on 24 December 2011. These protests were named "For Fair Elections" (Russian: За честные выборы) and their organizers set up the movement of the same name. By this time, the "For Fair Elections" protesters had coalesced around five main points: freedom for political prisoners; annulment of the election results; the resignation of Vladimir Churov (head of the election commission) and the opening of an official investigation into vote fraud; registration of opposition parties and new democratic legislation on parties and elections; as well as new democratic and open elections.

Presidential elections were held in Russia on 18 March 2018. Incumbent president Vladimir Putin was eligible to run. He declared his intent to do so on 6 December 2017 and was expected to win. This came following several months of speculation throughout the second half of 2017 as Putin made evasive comments, including that he had still not decided whether he would like to "step down" from the post of president, that he would "think about running", and that he "hadn't yet decided whether to run for another term". Different sources predicted that he would run as an independent to capitalize more support from the population, and although he could also have been nominated by the United Russia party as in 2012, Putin chose to run as an independent. Among registered voters in Russia, 67% voted in the election.

There were allegations of widespread electoral fraud, including ballot box stuffing, forced voting, and threats against election observers. A video widely shared online showed people stuffing papers into ballot boxes. In addition, critics of Putin were barred from running.

Russian presidential elections determine who will serve as the president of Russia for the next six (formerly four from 1996 to 2012 and five from 1991 to 1996) years.

Since the establishment of the position of the President of Russia in 1991, the presidential elections have taken place eight times: in 1991, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2018, and 2024. The next presidential election is scheduled for March 2030.

The All-Russian Political Party United Russia (Russian: Всероссийская политическая партия «Единая Россия», romanized: Vserossiyskaya politicheskaya partiya "Yedinaya Rossiya", pronounced [(j)ɪˈdʲinəjə rɐˈsʲijə]) is the ruling political party of Russia. As the largest party in the Russian Federation, it holds 325 (or 72.22%) of the 450 seats in the State Duma as of 2022, having constituted the majority in the chamber since 2007.

The party was formed on 1 December 2001 through a merger of Unity, and the Fatherland – All Russia bloc parties: Fatherland and All Russia; with Our Home – Russia party joining later. Following the 2003 and 2011 election results, United Russia held a parliamentary majority in the State Duma and a constitutional majority in 2007, 2016, and 2021. In the Duma elections of 2011, for the first time, the United Russia electoral list was formed based on the results of the preliminary (primary) elections held jointly with the All-Russia People's Front. According to the decisions of the XII Congress of United Russia, adopted on 24 September 2011, in the Duma elections, the party's pre-election list was headed by the President of the Russian Federation at the time, Dmitry Medvedev, and in the 2012 elections, Vladimir Putin became the presidential candidate. The structure of the party is made up of regional, local, and primary branches. Regional branches of United Russia have been created in all subjects of the Russian Federation. In Russia, there are 82,631 primary and 2,595 local branches of the party.