Voters will choose members of the State Duma – the lower house of the Russian parliament – as well as a number of regional and municipal heads.
The ruling United Russia party, which backs President Vladimir Putin, is widely expected to win a majority. And the country’s embattled opposition – which has backed strategic voting efforts to break Putin’s monopoly on power – has the least chance of reversing the country’s slide to authoritarian rule.
Two opposition activists who spoke to CNN alleged that Russian officials had tried excessively to prevent him from winning office as part of a concerted effort to sabotage the election contest.
The head of Russia’s Central Electoral Commission, Alla Pamfilova, rejected criticism of the vote, saying that Russia’s “entire political and social spectrum” is represented in the election. But political observers say the vote leaves little room for genuine opposition to Putin and that independent political activism is confined to an increasingly cramped space.
The latest crackdown on political dissent came when Alexey Navalny, a Kremlin critic and opposition politician, was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in Siberia in August 2020. Navalny blamed Russian security services for the attempt on his life, which the Russian government has repeatedly denied. The US and EU have largely agreed and approved the Russian authorities for their participation.
After a long treatment in Germany, a defiant Navalny returned to Moscow in January 2021 – and was immediately taken into custody. Angry supporters of Navalny, including his wife Yulia Navalnaya, took to the streets and nationwide protests broke out. But the following month, Navalny was sentenced to prison after a Moscow court ruled that he had violated the terms of parole in a 2014 case.
His sentencing prompted more demonstrations, but while tensions were high, with thousands of detentions and accounts of heavy crackdown by police, Russia did not descend into the mass unrest seen after contesting elections in neighboring Belarus in 2020.
Nevertheless, Russian authorities reacted strongly in April by outlawing Navalny’s political movement – dubbing it “extremist”, forcing it to shut down and making its members ineligible to participate in elections.
Many of Navalny’s aides fled the country as a result, while others who stayed have faced ongoing court cases – alleging protests against violations of hygiene rules during the pandemic – and restrictions on their freedoms. faced.
‘They are afraid of new leaders’
A Navalny aide, Violet Grudina, told CNN that officials did their best to stop her from contesting at the regional level.
Grudina, who runs Navalny’s Murmansk regional office, alleged that in July she was forcibly hospitalized in what she believed to be an attempt to miss the deadline for submitting relevant election documents. Despite eventually submitting his application, the local election commission did not register him as a candidate because of his “extremist” affiliation with Navalny, he said.
“Putin does not like competition of any kind and destroys all his political competitors. They [the authorities] Afraid of new leaders,” Grudina said, as she vowed to continue her efforts to implement political change.
Grudina posted an official response to her appeal to stay on the ballot on her Facebook page. The document – which CNN was not able to independently verify – said there was no evidence of election law violations.
The Kremlin is ‘clearing the electoral field’
On May 31, Andrei Pivovarov, the former executive director of Open Russia – an opposition group once linked to imprisoned Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky – was planning to go on leave when law enforcement officers boarded his plane in St. got arrested. . He has since been in prison for leading an “undesirable organization” and a Facebook post shared by him in August 2020 cited the reason for opening a criminal case. Pivovarov answered CNN’s written questions from a prison in Krasnodar.
“The main reason for my arrest was my plan to participate in the elections to the State Duma,” he said in his written reply. He said there was nothing hidden in it and he was ready to start campaigning when he was taken into custody.
Pivovarov was not killed by the ballot. But his chances of winning from prison – as the candidate of the liberal Yablon party – have been markedly reduced.
“In these elections, the Kremlin has set the task of completely clearing the electoral arena … In the context of the declining ratings of United Russia and rising protest sentiments, strong independent candidates, due to their bright campaigns, see the situation as critical. form.” Pivovarov said.
“The Kremlin could not allow this on the eve of the 2024 elections and decided to clean up completely” [the political ground] from all living things. ”
Monitor: The first major test for ‘smart voting’
Tatiana Stanovaya, a political analyst at Carnegie Moscow and founder of R.Politic, told CNN that the Duma election was only one factor contributing to the crackdown on dissent and a referendum last summer that mandated Putin’s constitutional terms Was. The reset – paved for running again in 2024 – was a turning point, and resulted in a “new order”.
In his view, Russia’s siloviki – veterans of the security services who hold key positions in the government – do not care about local elections. Rather, a harsh response to any civil disobedience is part of a “long-term process” to maintain control in Russia, she said.
Pointing to low turnout for Navalny across the country, Stanovaya said officials choose to go with the harshest approach, with little resistance from society.
But polling by state-funded pollster VTsIOM also indicates support for a united Russia is low, at around 29%.
Stanislav Andreichuk is the co-chairman of the independent Russian vote monitor Golos, who was labeled a foreign agent last month. He believes this was done to make it more difficult for the group to oversee elections, and believes officials were given flagged numbers and the initiative was encouraged by Navalny’s team. was being done. Concerned about the potential impact of what has been called “smart voting”.
Smart voting urges Russia to vote smartly in favor of a candidate who is most capable of removing a United Russia office bearer. Navalny’s team published its list on Wednesday with very few opposition candidates standing; Most of the candidates recommended by it are members of the Communist Party.
“The officials are not entirely sure what results they will get because of the impact of civic activities and smart voting. This election is the first major [national] Testing for smart voting, ”said Andrechuk.
Andreichuk acknowledged that United Russia is likely to win the expected majority, but the question remains how big.
Russia’s internet watchdog Roskomnadzor blocked access to the Smart Voting website in connection with the “extremist organization”, a reference to Navalny’s now outlawed political movement.
And Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested that the smart-voting effort was, in fact, a campaign designed to raise doubts about the legitimacy of Russian elections.
“We have a negative view of it,” he said in a conference call with reporters on Friday. “We think they are provocations that really harm voters.”
‘We can’t give up’
Anastasia Bryukhanova is one of the few opposition candidates running for a seat in the Duma elections in a wealthy Moscow constituency. Navalny’s smart voting list supports him and says he expects it to increase his vote share by 7 to 12%.
Despite the uphill battle for the opposition, she thinks it’s important to keep going.
“I believe we should always participate,” Bryukhanova told CNN. “We can’t give up.”
Despite the pressure, Bryukhanova feels optimistic about the future of Russian politics. “Someday this regime will end for whatever reason. And by this time, I wish we had this liberal power of people with experience in campaigning, politics and speaking,” she said.
Pivovarov told CNN he thinks Russia will continue to focus on “tightening the screws.” But he also remains optimistic, he said, as he is convinced by the number of letters he receives from across the country that a “majority” wants change.
“They cannot yet be called the opposition, but the demand for change is growing, and the composition of the State Duma that will be clearly offered to them will not satisfy them,” he said.
.