Talk:2023 Russian elections

Map of russia
Map seems wrong: if we take russian constitution, this map lacks Donetsk, Kherson and other new regions In reality, Russian territory was defined in 1991 and doesn't include Crimea. 94.191.136.6 (talk) 14:28, 13 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Russia annexed new regions and thus, what Russia considers its territory includes Crimea, the Donbas, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Plus, elections are being held in some of the occupied regions of Ukraine, so they should be showed here. GramCanMineAway (talk) 04:46, 12 September 2023 (UTC)

Gubernatorial indirect elections
How are the governors elected in these regions? By the local legislature? Who is eligible; are they elected as part of the legislature? Perhaps it'd be good to add information on the type of election in each subsection. Criticalthinker (talk) 10:59, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Is it important whether elections are fair and free ?
You removed a well-sourced sentence stating that elections in Russia are neither free nor fair claiming we do not need to include this for every single article. In my opinion, that fact is the most important one, and I don't understand why you disagree. Your constant removal of the claim that the elections in occupied Ukrainian territory have "been widely described as a sham and illegitimate" looks like edit warring. Rsk6400 (talk) 14:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)


 * See WP:OR. Mellk (talk) 15:34, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Please engage in serious discussion. I don't see where my addition is OR, and I don't see why your behaviour should not be called edit warring. If you think that a source specifically about the 2023 is needed, I don't agree with you. Nevertheless, I provided that source. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You are citing sources from 2010, 2016, etc for an article about 2023 elections. While that is perfectly fine for the Elections in Russia article where it belongs (though may be outdated), it does not mean you can simply copy-paste this for any article. It especially does not take into account the changes of the last few years. Also, why are you trying to throw all of this into the lead, are you familiar with MOS:LEAD?


 * You have continually restored the version with sources that are less reliable here using bogus reasons, such as the grammar not being perfect. Can you explain what is wrong with the new sources, since you have never addressed this? You are asking me to engage in serious discussion and to stop edit warring, when you are not doing this. Mellk (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, none of the ISW assessments mention explicitly sham or illegitimate elections, rather "reports of electoral falsifications and intimidation". So, I am not sure where "widely described" comes from since it just mentions coercion and attempts to portray the elections as legitimate in the occupied territories. Also, the elections in occupied territories were removed from this page, why is the legitimacy of elections that are not included even mentioned in the lead? Mellk (talk) 06:33, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that my suggestion took all your concerns into account. If you don't agree, feel free to revert or to improve. If you revert again, we are heading for an RfC. Rsk6400 (talk) 07:11, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
 * You told me to engage in serious discussion. What are you doing then? You just restored your edit without either addressing any of the concerns or even bothering to discuss. The issue regarding MOS:LEAD is about mentioning the elections in occupied territories in the lead without any of those elections even being included in the body. You also did not address this. I asked you what was wrong with the newer sources. You did not address this.


 * I actually took a look at the sources you cited and found problems in terms of OR and synth (which I already mentioned but you decided to still restore the edit) as well as WP:FICTREFS. None of the references have page numbers either, I am pretty sure someone just wrote that and cited a few random sources they could find without actually reading them. The 2010 book (Competitive Authoritarianism: Hybrid Regimes after the Cold War), which is really outdated at this point, says: "As the domestic balance of power shifted, elections became less competitive. The 2003 parliamentary election was characterized by media bias, massive abuse of state resource, and at least some electoral manipulation... In the 2007 parliamentary election, the government strictly limited opposition access to the media and used a highly restrictive political-parties law to bar several liberal parties from running" (pages 197–201). Nothing mentioned about regional elections and considering the last parliamentary election was in 2007 and presidential election in 2008, why would we use this here? I took a look at the 2018 book (How Dictatorships Work: Power, Personalization, and Collapse) and there is literally nothing about Russian elections; Putin is not even mentioned once. This is a fake reference. I took a look at the 2015 book (Building an Authoritarian Polity Russia in Post-Soviet Times) and the only relevant quotes I could get are in the following footnote. It also says: "Regional officials are not the mere ciphers of the president’s will. Political parties and civil society organizations do not automatically bend the knee to Putin and his demands, while sections of the populace seem, at least rhetorically, to reject his authority. Thus, while Putin is the dominant figure in the political landscape, he must manage the other actors in that landscape, rather than simply control them." While it does not focus on regional elections, it mentions a nuance with regional politics and a lot of this is outdated at this point.


 * It is possible to instead include a background section that mentions the changes since the last election. Not what you decided to do about elections that are not related to this subject using old sources that do not even support the statement or mention only parliamentary and presidential elections. At the moment, I will work on expanding the campaign.


 * I see you are not really interested in actually discussing this anyway. I do not see why you would go straight to RfC when there are such problems with your changes and you are showing no interest in discussing or asking for 3PO. Mellk (talk) 09:14, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Sham elections in occupied parts of Ukraine
Mellk, the WP:ONUS to archieve consensus for your changes is on you. Your edit summaries were not very helpful. I'll take a look at the problem you describe with the ISW assessments. As far as I see, RS as well as Kremlin sources treat the elections in occupied territories and those in Russia as one thing, so IMHO we should mention both in the lead. Rsk6400 (talk) 06:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)


 * If you want to mention the elections in occupied territories in the lead, then they need to be included in the body. If you do not want to include them in the body, then you need to not mention them in the lead, per the manual of style. There needs to be consensus for inclusion either way, per WP:ONUS. It is strange that you now say that we should mention them when you have been removing them in previous edits using completely opposite reasoning. Since there is a separate article for elections in occupied territories, it should be mentioned in that article instead. Mellk (talk) 08:22, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Stop edit warring, MOS is not privileged over consensus. What you said above looks like an announcement of WP:STONEWALLING. Since NPOV is among the pillars of WP, the lead has to contain something about the blatant unfairness of that "election". Rsk6400 (talk) 12:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Stonewalling is what you are doing right now. Did you read that page? You have not explained why we should not follow MOS:LEAD, the only reason you have given is WP:ILIKEIT. The lead mentions elections in occupied territories yet the body does not mention them at all, so you have two options: a) remove the mention of those elections and actually follow the MOS or b) merge the article on elections in occupied territories with this one. If you are just going to continue with this, then I will go for dispute resolution instead. Mellk (talk) 14:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Also the source you added only calls the elections in annexed regions a sham, the ISW does not say this (you still have decided not to address that too), yet you phrased it to refer to all the elections. WP:V is a core policy, right? Mellk (talk) 14:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Am I right that this disagreement is regarding whether or not the following sentence should be included in the lead? "These elections also took place in the four occupied Ukrainian oblasts that were illegally annexed on 30 September 2022 and illegally annexed Crimea amidst the military invasion of the country." Is that the totality of the dispute here? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 14:55, 31 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes, because we already have the article 2023 elections in Russian-occupied Ukraine and all mentions of those elections were removed from the body of this article. Mellk (talk) 15:03, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * In my opinion it should be mentioned somewhere in the article. I also think it's fine to include in the lead. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:12, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It can be mentioned in the body, but the lead needs to summarize the body per MOS:LEAD and not include new information. At the moment, it is not following this guideline. Mellk (talk) 15:19, 31 October 2023 (UTC)