Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s app instructing Russians how to vote to unseat Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party yesterday disappeared from Apple and Google, as three-day parliamentary polls marked by a historic crackdown on the opposition opened across the country.
Parliamentary and local polls in the world’s largest country spread over 11 time zones began at 8am yesterday and are to end tomorrow.
The run-up to the parliamentary polls has been marred by an unprecedented crackdown on Kremlin critics and independent media, with Putin’s top foe Navalny jailed in January and his organizations subsequently outlawed.
Photo: Reuters
Yesterday morning, Navalny’s “Smart Voting” app was unavailable on Google and Apple stores after Russia ramped up pressure on US tech giants to remove it, accusing them of election interference.
Navalny’s allies denounced the move as an “act of political censorship.”
“They caved in to the Kremlin’s blackmail,” exiled Navalny ally Leonid Volkov wrote on Telegram.
Google and Apple have not commented on the move.
Navalny had appealed to supporters from prison to download the app and urged them to back mostly Communist Party candidates to weaken the ruling party.
With many voters frustrated by falling incomes and not planning to cast their ballots, Putin urged Russians to elect a “strong” parliament.
“I’m counting on your responsible, balanced and patriotic civic position,” Putin said in a video address on Thursday.
The 68-year-old Russian leader is isolating after the Kremlin announced this week an outbreak of COVID-19 among his inner circle.
Navalny had called on Russians to cast aside apathy and vote pro-Kremlin candidates out of power.
“Are you not interested in trying?” he said in a message posted on Instagram, adding that even in prison he remained optimistic and urging Russians to do the same.
“I really do not think that I cannot change anything,” said the 45-year-old, who barely survived a poisoning with Novichok nerve agent, which he has blamed on the Kremlin.
The Navalny’s allies have been barred from running, and his team has promoted his tactical voting project, urging supporters to back candidates best positioned to beat Putin’s United Russia candidates.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that developers of Navalny’s app have ties to the Pentagon, and last week Moscow summoned US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan over interference of US tech giants in the polls.
Surveys by state-run pollster VTsIOM show that fewer than 30 percent of Russians plan to vote for the ruling party, down from 40 to 45 percent in the weeks ahead of the previous parliamentary election in 2016.
United Russia is expected to retain its two-thirds majority in the Duma, enough to change the constitution, as it did last year with reforms allowing Putin to extend his rule to 2036.
The vote is being held online and in person, in a move officials said is aimed at limiting voters’ potential exposure to COVID-19. The opposition says that voting over several days gives officials greater opportunities to fix elections.
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said last month that it would not be sending observers to Russia for the parliamentary election because of a limit on numbers imposed by Moscow.
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