ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AS THE MOST IMPORTANT POLITICAL EVENT AT THE MODERN STAGE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the political significance of presidential elections in the Russian Federation on the basis of the analysis of the experience of elections since the existence of the state in the current form. As a key approach were chosen such methods as contentand event-analysis, that allowed to determine the most significant trends in the electoral process in the 1990s-2000s.The result of the work was the identifying of the role of the individual in the process, linked to the importance of the political figure of Vladimir Putin, who appears to the electorate as a national leader, able to implement effective foreign and domestic policy, and seeking a stable state of the political system of the country. To do this, a multifaceted study was carried out, including a content analysis of the presidential address to the Federal Assembly, the study of the public demand for key areas of political development, as well as a comparative analysis of the three presidents who managed to become heads of state after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The research community can be identified as a target group of the article; the available conclusions can be useful in studying the further outcomes of the presidential and parliamentary elections and in determining the strategic guidelines of the higher authorities of Russia.