Exclusive documents obtained by MBK.Media reveal an elaborate government project designed to increase turnout in this Sunday’s presidential “election”.  A secretive plan coordinated by “United Russia” and the presidential administration is looking mobilise up to 100% of state employees by using top-down pressure from the heads of companies and institutions.

A vertical structure has been formed over the last few months designed to put pressure on the heads of companies to make certain “recommendations” to their employees regarding this Sunday’s events.

In each large company certain people have been made responsible for “encouraging” their workers to go out and vote.  These high-level functionaries are then forced to report back to United Russia and even the presidential administration with the results of their work.

A set of special instructions has been created by the Putin regime’s political experts specifically for state corporations and institutions.  The main stated goal is “to provide practically 100% participation of the company/institution’s employees, their families, as well as veterans in the March 18 presidential elections.”

The principles of the project are as follows:

• Exclusion of any form of administrative coercion associated with threats of punishment.
• Absence of campaigning for any one particular candidate.
• For counting use list of the company/institution’s employees (individual control).
• Step-by-step control of all actions conducted by the heads of companies/institutions.
• Softly incentivise motivation to vote.
• Personal contact with the company’s employees, addressing of employees and veterans by company peers.
• The use of direct appeals to the top managers of companies.
• Multiple communicative “nudges” of the company’s employees.

The first and second points are very democratic.  No-one is to be coerced, and no-one is to be persuaded to vote for any one particular candidate (which particular candidate did they have in mind?).  Company directors are put in a difficult position: no coercion is allowed but a 100% turnout must be ensured.  Point three states that directors must present a physical list of those who have voted.  And “United Russia” (read instead: “The Kremlin”) will control the actions (as well as the inaction) of each individual director.  He is personally responsible for this “soft stimulation approach”, “personal contacts” and multiple “direct addresses”.

The instructions recommend that “spot-checks” should be conducted into the actions of company directions a number of times before the elections.  This is to be done by the person “responsible for mobilisation in the company”.  This person is in fact an external superintendent, who will be appointed by the presidential administration.

It has long been clear that the Kremlin’s main goal this year is to maximise turnout in order to ensure a historically high “vote” in support of the incumbent Vladimir Putin.  The 2012 elections were characterised by widespread vote falsification which subsequently led to some of the country’s largest political demonstrations in its post-Soviet history.  This year the Kremlin are clearly taking no chances: everything must be done to ensure individuals cast the votes themselves.

Either way the Russian opposition is set to be on guard for potential vote falsification.  Mobile teams of election observers will be present in Russia’s main cities on Sunday in order to document and report any instances of fraud.  The teams will be accompanied by journalists and lawyers in order to tackle any potential resistance, and to publicise any wrongdoing.