Russians yesterday voted in regional elections overshadowed by the poisoning of the main opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who had urged supporters to vote tactically to push out the ruling party backing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 41 of the country’s 85 regions, Russians were voting for regional governors and lawmakers in regional and city legislatures as well as in several by-elections for national lawmakers.
Voters went to the polls wearing compulsory masks and gloves, and undergoing temperature checks to protect against COVID-19 infection, journalists saw in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.
Photo: Reuters
The vote is seen as a key test of the Kremlin’s control of local politics, as the ruling United Russia party has seen a drop in popularity amid simmering public anger over falling incomes and economic woes.
One voter in Novosibirsk, 57-year-old retired army officer Vladimir Semyonov, told reporters that he had voted for an opposition candidate, “not one of those they always offer us, to change something, so we don’t have stagnation.”
The poisoning of Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition figure, could also influence voters.
After he was evacuated from Siberia to Berlin, German doctors said Navalny had been poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent.
His associates believe the use of the banned chemical weapon shows only the Russian state could be responsible.
Navalny has sought to promote tactical voting, urging his supporters to back whichever is the strongest candidate to defeat the ruling party.
He had been in Siberia to promote his “smart voting” campaign when he fell ill.
Elections in the country are for the first time being held over three days and some polling stations for early voting were open-air.
Election commission chief Ella Pamfilova at a briefing yesterday angrily denied a report that voters had been casting ballots on the trunk of a car, but said that open-air voting suited rural voters.
“For some people it’s more convenient to come and sit at a street-stand, that’s their right,” she said.
Early voting began on Friday and yesterday was the main polling day.
Several regions recorded large turnouts in two days of early voting, with more than 50 percent of the electorate casting ballots early in the eastern Jewish Autonomous Region and in Tatarstan.
The opposition has warned the measure allows the authorities to organize mass vote-rigging, while Pamfilova decried “unobjective and mean” accusations.
“Currently we do not see that many violations,” she said.
The controversial three-day system was first used this summer for a national vote on constitutional amendments that made it possible for Putin to stay in power until 2036.
In what some observers believe is another Kremlin ploy to dilute the opposition vote, candidates are also standing for four little-known new parties.
One of the highest-profile campaigns is taking place in Novosibirsk, Russia’s third-largest city.
The head of Navalny’s office in the city, Sergei Boiko, has created an opposition alliance to counter United Russia and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
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