“I don’t like any of the candidates, I would prefer there to be others, but I’ve decided to come and vote anyway,” says Oleg, a liberal by profession, in the middle of the long queue that formed on Sunday at twelve noon and under the intimidating gaze of a dozen policemen, uniformed, armed and wearing bulletproof vests. Russia deployed heavy security measures at polling centers during a three-day presidential election that, as expected, left an uncontested victory for Kremlin tenant Vladimir Putin with more than 87 percent of the vote. votes, according to polls at the ballot box and preliminary data with 25% counted.
When the reporter arrived at Moscow’s polling station No. 1, in the Central Actor’s House on Arbat Street, there were barely five people who passed through the metal arches of the lobby and were searched by several policemen. But at noon, about two hundred people seemed to have agreed to go vote at the same time. They responded in this way to the action called by the opposition, “Midday against Putin”, their peculiar way of showing their disgust at the Kremlin.
“If there had been serious debates of ideas, competing programs, other candidates, if it had been like in a non-authoritarian country, then I would know who I will vote for”, continued Oleg, making a joke in his answer.
“Of course I came to vote against Putin”, said another of the attendees, Yelena, a geographer by profession, less reluctant to directly explain the meaning of her ballot.
The initiative “Midday against Putin” was the last wish of the leader of the opposition, Aleksei Navalni, who died last month in a penal colony in the Arctic. From prison, in December he supported this initiative and after being buried in Moscow, his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, and her team took up the idea to turn the last day of the elections into a day of protest against Putin In a video published on YouTube, Navalnaia asked to vote for another candidate other than the head of the Kremlin, or to put “Navalni” on the ballot or put a null vote in the ballot box.
Thousands of citizens went to the election fairs all over Russia at twelve o’clock to join the peaceful protest action. Symbolic but with relative impact. Navalni’s team posted videos on YouTube of people lining up at different polling stations around the country in what it said was a peaceful protest. “I will mark two boxes, so the vote will be null and my position will be clear. But I understand that this is just a drop in the ocean and that we are actually very few”, lamented Ielena.
Sure enough, thirty minutes later almost everyone who had lined up to the popular Vagtangov Theater across Arbat Street had already entered the polling station to take part in this peculiar Russian presidential election, in which we already knew that Putin would sweep
The “Midday against Putin” action was also followed outside Russia. In the queue that formed in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin to vote, you could see Iúlia Navalnaia and the ex-oligarch and now exiled opponent Mikhaïl Khodorkovsky.
The real unknown yesterday was the participation. The Kremlin has bet on a high turnout, so that it can present Putin’s victory as completely legitimate. The objective was more than fulfilled. As reported by the Central Electoral Commission, when the polling stations closed in the enclave of Kaliningrad, in the last of the eleven Russian time zones, 73.33% of the electorate participated in these elections, a record figure in Russia and much higher than that of the previous elections, those of 2018, when participation amounted to 67.54%.
“This time there was much more active voting than on previous occasions in any type of voting”, confirmed the chairperson of the table, who prefers that we do not write her name, in the Arbat Street school.
Several election observers present in the room, Ksenia from the Communist Party and Irina, from the Citizens’ Council of Moscow, an advisory body, confirmed the high turnout. Another observer, accredited by the Kremlin candidate, refuses to answer any questions but asks for the journalist’s accreditation and the photograph with the mobile phone.
In these pre-determined elections, the Russian president faced three rivals who, however, are totally pro-Kremlin: Nikolai Kharitonov, from the Communist Party; Leonid Slutski, leader of the ultra-nationalist Liberal-Democrat Party, and Vladislav Davankov, for Gent Nova, formations with deputies in the Duma and who are very careful not to anger the authorities. They are the tolerated opposition that allows the Kremlin to create a sense of plurality. Kharitonov would get 4.6%, according to polls by the Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM); Slutski, 3%, and Davankov, 4.2%.
“We live in the circumstances we live in, the elections are a possibility to participate and show our opinion”, affirms Iúlia. Stepan believes that, even if no change is seen, “the meaning of our vote will reach the president’s administration, which will be able to analyze what people really think.”
