He asked them to show “responsibility”, “patriotism” and “attention” Vladimir Putin with a videotaped message a few hours before the start of the marathon voting of the parliamentary, but also of the regional and local elections from which the main political opponents of the Kremlin have been excluded.
Voting is expected to begin on September 17 and end on September 19 in order to reduce epidemiological risks. Voting starts today (Thursday 16/9) in the Russian Far East and the results are expected on Sunday night.
The Russian opposition to Putin and the Kremlin has been excluded from the elections, after months of systematic crackdowns that began with the arrest of Russian President Alexei Navalny’s main political opponent on his return to Russia in January after being poisoned.
Since then, his entire movement has been outlawed as “extremist” and many of his political allies have been forced into exile or under house arrest or their applications have been rejected.
About 108 million Russians vote in the election of 450 members of the Russian Duma.
“Smart vote”
Alexei Navalny called on his supporters in prison to vote “smartly” in every constituency, supporting the one who is in the best position to make it difficult for the ruling United Russia party, often the Communist Party of Zhuganov.
“Since 2003, that is, for almost TWENTY YEARS, no independent candidate has secured victory in the Duma elections,” Alexei Navalny recalled in a message posted on social media.
Unpopular amid corruption scandals and declining living standards, United Russia, Vladimir Putin’s party, is receiving less than 30 percent of the vote in opinion polls.
But, in the absence of an opponent, he will dominate. The other parties allowed to run in the elections are basically submissive to the Kremlin. They are the communists of Gennady Zyuganov, the nationalists of Vladimir Zirinovsky’s LDPR and the centrists of Sergei Mironov’s Fair Russia.
These parties have approved the constitutional reform that allows Vladimir Putin to remain in power until 2036 or the law that excludes Navalny supporters from the elections.
Putin himself, in power for more than twenty years, remains very popular and has campaigned in his own way, announcing financial aid to 42 million retirees, a significant part of the electorate, a few weeks before the election.
At the same time, the Russian authorities took care to denounce Navalny as an “extremist” and to denounce “Western interference” in the electoral process.
The American digital giants in the crosshairs
THE Moscow accuses US digital giants of “interfering in Russia’s internal affairs” because they refuse to delete content deemed illegal by the Kremlin.
The Russian Foreign Ministry last week announced its anger over the situation to the US ambassador to Moscow.
Representatives of Apple and Google have been summoned today before a committee of the upper Russian parliament, the Federation Council, while American companies refuse to remove the “Navalny” application from their platforms.
Twitter, Facebook and Telegram have been repeatedly condemned in recent months for refusing to delete content.
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