[ad_1]
Alexei Navalny was returning from a campaign tour when the poison began to take effect on his body during the flight to Moscow. His supporters believe that the poison attack served to remove him from circulation before the Russian regional elections.
From Friday to Sunday, much of Russia has been called upon to appoint governors, regional parliaments, city councils and mayors. The first significant results are expected on Monday.
Navalny himself does not run for election, and other independent opposition figures often struggle to be allowed to vote. The Kremlin party, United Russia, dominates. However, Navalny and his supporters influence the elections.
“The nervousness is increasing,” writes columnist Fyodor Krasheninnikov in the news magazine “Republic”. “By all indications, the country’s political leadership is concerned about the results on election day.”
The Kremlin wants to keep control of politics in the regions. The runoff elections are not a tragedy, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov recently announced, but Moscow actually wants to avoid surprises in regional elections.
[Wenn Sie die wichtigsten Nachrichten aus Berlin, Deutschland und der Welt live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere runderneuerte App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
Dress rehearsal for general elections
They are seen as a dress rehearsal for next year’s parliamentary elections, making them a major test of humor for the ruling party and for President Vladimir Putin. It is the first vote since the controversial constitutional reform that gives Putin more power and allows him to remain in the Kremlin until 2036.
The government’s initially wavering approach to the crown crisis is likely to play a role, as well as the economic crisis and rising unemployment. Dissatisfaction is mounting, especially in remote regions that Moscow has neglected.
Support for the Kremlin party in independent polls is just under 30 percent. President Putin has also recently lost support.
Since Navalny himself has no chance to stand in the elections, he has devised a different strategy: his goal is to prevent the success of the ruling party’s representatives. To this end, he and his fellow campaigners have long been asking voters to vote for representatives of approved opposition parties.
They are often politicians from the communists or the nationalist LDPR. They are seen as an opposition system, which is supposed to give the appearance of political competition, but in reality it is not usually an independent counterweight to the government.
[Mehr aus der Hauptstadt. Mehr aus der Region. Mehr zu Politik und Gesellschaft. Und mehr Nützliches für Sie. Das gibt’s jetzt mit Tagesspiegel Plus. Jetzt 30 Tage kostenlos testen]
Navalny Tactics Success
In the Duma, too, the opposition tends to vote loyally for the government. However, away from Moscow, these candidates sometimes set their own political accents, not always in favor of Moscow. Therefore, Navalny wants to use the protest elections to break the Kremlin’s monopoly of power in the regions and steal the votes of the candidates he criticizes for corruption and abuse of power.
Navalny calls his election tactics “smart voting.” Navalny launched its own “Smart Voting App” and website; These recommendations are based on the constituency and which opposition candidates have the best chance of ousting the ruling party’s representatives.
Last year it had considerable success in Moscow after independent opponents were not admitted. At the end of the “smart” vote, candidates without Kremlin support won almost half of the total 45 seats and caused unexpected defeats for some local party leaders.
The cracks in the system are more than clear to Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert on internal politics at the Carnegie Center think tank in Moscow. For Kolesnikov, the fact that people have taken to the streets for weeks to protest against the arrest of their governor Sergej Furgal in Kolesnikov, in the far east of the gigantic country, is a sign that the hitherto unorganized civil society is becoming unorganized. rapidly politicizing, increasingly against Putin.
Demonstrations for the arrested governor
LDPR politician Furgal was elected governor two years ago in a protest election. Authorities are now investigating him for his alleged involvement in contract killings 15 years ago. Furgal denies this and considers that the process is politically motivated. The people of Khabarovsk are not only demonstrating for their governor, but also opposing Moscow’s influence on local politics.
“Putin’s gang has to go to court” and “Putin stole our governor,” chanted the discontents at the demonstrations. According to polls, almost half of all Russians support these protests.
For those, Kolesnikov said, who have not yet been politicized, Navalny’s tactic in the regional elections could be a means “to avenge his poisoning.” There is growing potential for elections and protest demonstrations. “If not in this election, then in the next. If not in the city where protests are expected, in another. “
“We want more regions like Khabarovsk,” explains Vladimir Milov, a close colleague of Navalny, in the “Financial Times.” What is meant are surprise victories and a citizen uprising. Khabarovsk is seen as an example of how smart voting can work. “Smart voting,” says Milow, is probably “the Kremlin’s biggest concern.”
