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42 thousand. The remote Nenets Autonomous District, an oil-rich tundra roughly the same size as the state of Missouri, was the only one to oppose the president’s proposal: 56 percent. voters voted against the amendments to the Constitution. This is a dramatic contrast to the results of the national vote, which show up to 78%. voter approval (as stated by the Kremlin, but large-scale falsification of votes suspected).
The Kremlin welcomes a “victorious vote of confidence” in the referendum
“People don’t want to admit that the government can manipulate them so easily,” said Yuri Tiuliubayev, 47, the owner of a travel agency in the county seat, Naryan Mare. “These amendments make no sense, there was no reason to change the Constitution on July 1.”
The Kremlin has implemented a plan to allow Putin to run in the presidential election for two more periods of six years, using a series of populist measures to secure support: from guarantees that state pensions will increase to a ban on gay marriage. .
Tensions among the population.
However, in the Nenets Autonomous District, which was not famous for its opposition to the Kremlin, the people who voted in the referendum were not calm about a local problem. Residents were angry at the government’s plan to merge their county with a neighbor, locals, analysts and officials said.
“If it weren’t for the referendum on merging areas, residents would have voted in favor of the constitutional amendment,” said Viktoria Bobrova, 57, one of the leaders of the area’s civic group. “It was a vote against the actions of a government that did not take into account local opinions.”
Local officials did not pressure the population to vote, as is the custom in Russia and is called an “administrative remedy.” According to Natalia Zubarevich, director of the Regional Studies Program of the Moscow-based Independent Institute for Social Policy, coercive measures are widely used by authorities in other parts of the country.
“The scale of the administrative remedy used in this vote was simply incomprehensible,” he said. However, in the Nenets Autonomous District, “the resources did not work because the local elite did not try to influence the population, they were very dissatisfied” with the Kremlin’s plan to merge the two areas.
“The merger would have cost them financially,” he explained.
Election officials indicated that there were no serious irregularities during the vote. The results of the Nenets Autonomous District “reaffirm that the vote was as transparent as possible,” Ela Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission, told RIA Novosti on Thursday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the number of votes against the amendment in the Nenets Autonomous District was “quite insignificant” compared to the total number of votes in favor.
Government misconduct
While the results of the referendum can confirm the saying that all politicians and locals, some people see an important message for the Kremlin. The Kremlin eventually abandoned its intention to unite the areas, but the locals were still angry on the day of the vote, Tiuliubayev said.
“For many years, the residents of the constituency did not vote because, like many Russians, they had the same thing,” he explained. – But now they were treated like idiots. Many people have supported such actions as a personal insult. “
The government must treat its citizens appropriately, the man continued, “whether it is led by Putin or someone else.”
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