2023-12-17 06:00:00
Vladimir Putin. Europa Press / Contacto / Mikhael Kl | EUROPAPRESS
A popular initiative supports the Russian leader to compete again as an independent for the presidency in March 2024
17 dic 2023 . Updated at 05:00 a.m.
With the main leaders of the real opposition to the Kremlin in the cemetery, exile or prison, the only candidates the Russian president will face, Vladimir Putinin its fight for re-election will be the ones that present domesticated formations such as the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF in its Russian acronym), the ultranationalists of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the supposedly social democrats of Fair Russia. They are the same as They have never overshadowed Putin and that they never together garnered even 30% of the votes in a presidential election. These formations will have to choose their candidates in the coming days to be registered before January 1, but neither their current leaders – Gennadi Zyugnov, Leonid Slutski and Sergui Mirnov – nor anyone in their ranks has enough charisma to mobilize the dissatisfied electorate. .
All three parties support the offensive in Ukraine and they are not combative in their actions against the Government, except in lip service. This time, the New People party, which defines itself as liberal, led by businessman Alexi Nechaev, will also attend, and will do so for the first time in the presidential elections. He is on the European Union’s sanctions list for supporting the invasion of Ukraine. It is not to be expected, therefore, that an alternative can be offered to voters dissatisfied with Putin’s policies, especially regarding the war in the neighboring country and economic policy.
According to official polls in recent days, up to 80% of Russians approve of the management of Putin, who has led this country since 2000, with a four-year parenthesis (from 2008 to 2012) as prime minister.
Navalny’s courage
The politician who most courageously and ardently criticized the Kremlin’s corrupt schemes and his repressive line in his rallies, demonstrations and through his organization, the Fund to Fight Corruption (FBK), now dissolved and banned, has been Alexi Navalny. It cost him an attempted poisoning and successive judicial sentences, the most serious handed down in August, 19 years in prison under a harsh regime for an accusation of extremism.
Even harsher was the sentence to which the opponent and journalist, Vladmir Kara-Murz, was sentenced in April., 25 years in a harsh regime, the longest dictated in Russia against a critic of Putin’s policies, upon being recognized guilty of high treason and other crimes, including spreading hoaxes about the Russian Army in an interview with the CNN channel and activism in an organization declared undesirable, as the Open Russia Foundation created by Mikhal Khodorkovsky is classified, who spent ten years in prison for calling the system created by Putin as corrupt, although he was formally charged with crimes of an economic nature. Kar-Murz also suffered two poisoning attempts. Last Wednesday, the Russian Justice rejected the appeal presented by another well-known opponent, Ili Yashin, against the sentence that sentenced him in December 2022 to eight and a half years in prison for spreading false information about the Russian Army, for denouncing in his YouTube channel the alleged crimes perpetrated by the Russian Army in the Ukrainian city of Bucha. He was then one of the few opposition leaders left free. Andri Pivovrov, also linked to Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation, was sentenced to four years in prison in July of last year.
The number of activists and people critical of power in Russia imprisoned is increasing. Human Rights defense organizations estimate that In Russia there are currently about 1,500 political prisoners.Putinve justified the heavy hand, the Russian Federation is immersed in an armed conflict with a neighboring country and I believe that we must adopt a certain attitude towards people who cause us harm within the country, he recently stated. Many were murdered for their political ideas. In addition to Nemtsov and the journalist Anna Politkvksayadeputy Sergui Yushenkov and the human rights activist, Natalia Estemrova.
In addition, There are many opponents who fled from Russia to avoid suffering the same fate as Navalni, Kara-Murz or Yashin: Khodorkovsky himself, the former prime minister, Mikhal Kasinov, the former legislator Ili Ponomariov, who was the only deputy who voted against the annexation of Crimea, the former deputy, Dmitri Gudkov, son of the also former legislator and charismatic fighter against the abuses by the authorities, Guennadi Gudkov, the former chess champion, Garri Kasprov, the economist, Sergui Guriev and a long list.
Since In these rallies there will be no candidates with an authentic critical charge against power nor with feasible programs aimed at changing the course of the country, The proposal of Navalni’s supporters is to vote for any candidate other than Putin, what has come to be called the intelligent vote. For Putin, the 2024 elections are a referendum on the approval of his policies, on the approval of war. On March 17, Russia must realize that the majority no longer wants to see it at the head of the country. The voting results will be falsified, but our task is to ensure that this manipulation is exposed, says the statement released by FBK through social networks.
Navalny’s followers have set up billboards congratulating the New Year with a QR code that leads to the Russia without Putin website, which explains how to hinder the re-election of the current Russian president. But local authorities have discovered the ruse and given the order to remove these fences. The Kremlin wants to see a turnout of more than 70% and a result in favor of Putin of more than 75%, anonymous participants told the Russian publication RBK in a closed seminar for deputy governors and heads of regional electoral commissions. According to Russian political scientist Abbs Gallimov, the authorities completely control the voting process and can invent any result. In his opinion, the possibilities of supervising the elections are limited. Voting in three days and three nights has also been introduced with infinite possibilities of falsification. Generalized repression against the opposition, those who are not in prison are abroad, and total control over the candidate nomination system, which prevents any real opposition from sneaking in. However, Gallimov believes that it is not enough to manipulate the result, the Kremlin needs the elections to be credible to strengthen Putin’s legitimacy, something problematic, since, according to his calculations, the president’s real electoral index right now does not exceed 35%.
Filed in: Vladimir Putin Russia Kremlin
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