Russia began a three-day vote on Friday. presidential election President Vladimir Putin's rule, which has suppressed opposition, is almost certain to extend for another six years.
There have been at least six reports of vandalism at polling places, including incendiary bombings and someone pouring green liquid into ballot boxes, apparently the same as the green liquid in 2017. It is reminiscent of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was attacked by assailants spraying disinfectant. his face.
Voting is ongoing until Sunday at polling stations in 11 time zones across the vast country, in illegally annexed areas of Ukraine, and online. According to the Kremlin, Putin cast his vote online.
This election will be held against the following background: ruthless oppression it has Dysfunctional independent media and prominent rights organizations and gave Putin complete control of the political system.
More than 50 countries will go to the polls in 2024
Also comes as Moscow one war in ukraine is entering its third year. Russia has the advantage on the battlefield and is slowly making small gains.Russian Missile attack on the port city of Odesa At least 14 people were killed on Friday, local officials said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is making Moscow look vulnerable behind the front lines with long-range drone strikes deep into Russia and high-tech drone attacks that put the Black Sea Fleet on the defensive.
Russian regions bordering Ukraine have reported a surge in shelling and repeated attacks by Ukrainian forces this week, which President Putin described on Friday as an attempt to scare the population and derail the vote. .
“Enemy attacks have not and will not go unpunished,” he vowed at a Security Council meeting.
“I am confident that our people, the Russian people, will respond even more unitedly,” Putin said. “Who did they decide to scare? The Russians? That has never happened and will never happen.”
By the time voting ended Friday night in Russia's westernmost Kaliningrad region, more than a third of the country's voters had cast their votes in person and online, according to the Central Election Commission. Online voting, which began on Friday morning, will be available 24 hours a day in Moscow and 28 other regions until 8pm local time on Sunday.
Officials said the vote was held in an orderly manner, but in St. Petersburg, local media reported that a woman threw a Molotov cocktail on the roof of a school where a polling station was located. The deputy head of Russia's Central Election Commission said people poured green liquid into ballot boxes in five locations, including Moscow.
The news site also reported on its Telegram message channel that a woman in Moscow set fire to a polling station. Such acts are extremely dangerous, as election interference is punishable by up to five years in prison.
election almost no suspense Putin, 71, is running for a fifth term virtually unopposed. His political opponents are in prison or in exile. Mr. Navalny is the most ferocious of them all. Died in a penal colony in the North Pole last month. The other three candidates on the ballot are low-profile politicians from nominal opposition parties who support the Kremlin's line.
Observers have little hope that the elections will be free and fair.
European Council President Charles Michel made scathing comments on Friday about the predetermined nature of the vote. “I would like to congratulate President Vladimir Putin on his great victory in the elections starting today. There is no opposition. There is no freedom. There is no choice,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Apart from fewer choices for voters, the possibilities for independent oversight are very limited.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with residents after visiting the Solnechny Dar greenhouse complex on the outskirts of Stavropol, Russia, March 5, 2024. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin pool photo, via AP, File)
No important international observers were present. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers have not been invited and only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations, and independent observers will be installed. The chances were low. Voting takes place over three days at approximately 100,000 polling stations, making true monitoring difficult in any case.
“The elections across Russia are fake. The Kremlin controls who takes part in voting. The Kremlin controls how elections are campaigned. Not to mention that it can control every aspect of the voting and vote-counting process. ” said Sam Green, director of democratic resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington.
Ukraine and Western countries also condemned Russia for holding the vote in areas of Ukraine controlled and occupied by Russian forces.
Political analysts and opposition figures say Ukraine is in many ways central to this election. They argue that President Putin wants to use his almost certain election victory as evidence that the war and its response are widely supported. Meanwhile, the opposition hopes to use the vote to show dissatisfaction with both the war and the Kremlin.
Two anti-war politicians were expelled Abbas Galliamov, a former Putin speechwriter and political analyst, was removed from the vote after garnering genuine, if not overwhelming, support, saying that he would not be able to control voters' choices on “key issues on Russia's political agenda.” He said it took away space.
Russia's dispersed opposition is calling on those dissatisfied with President Vladimir Putin and the war to come to polling stations at noon on Sunday, the last day of voting, to protest. This strategy was endorsed by Navalny shortly before his death.
“We need to use voting day to show that we exist, that many of us exist, that we are real, living, real people and that we are against Putin …What you do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. Your ballot may be ruined,” said widow Yulia Navalnaya. .
It remains to be seen how well this strategy will work.
Russia's famous independent election monitoring group Golos said in a report this week that authorities are “doing everything they can to keep the public unaware of the very fact that elections are being held.”
The observer group described pre-vote campaigning as “almost unremarkable” and the “emptiest” since 2000, when Golos was founded and began monitoring Russia's elections.
Putin's campaign was a cover for the president's activities, and other candidates were “clearly reluctant,” the report said.
Golos said state media is spending less airtime on the election than in 2018, when Putin last won. The group says authorities are betting on pressuring voters they have control over (such as Russians working in state-owned companies and institutions) to come to polling stations, rather than promoting voting to ensure the desired turnout. It seems that there is.
Monitoring groups themselves have also been caught up in the crackdown. Grigory Melkonyanto, co-chairman of the monitoring group, is jailed and awaiting trial on charges widely seen as trying to pressure the group ahead of the election.
“This election will fail to reflect the true mood of the people,” Golos said in the report. “The distance between the people and the decision-making about the fate of the country has never been greater.”
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