The election is seen as a dry run for the 2024 presidential election. (File)
Moscow:
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny appealed to Russians from behind bars on Thursday, nearly a year after he was poisoned with what the West believed was a nerve agent, and told them to vote tactically in next month’s election to try to hurt the Kremlin. to do.
His clever voting plan is one of the last levers Navalny and his allies have after a crackdown this summer to ban his move as “extremist”.
Its allies will not be allowed to run in the September 17-19 elections, and United Russia, which backs President Vladimir Putin, is expected to win despite a slump in popularity.
The election is seen as a dry run for the presidential election in 2024. Putin, who has been in power for more than 20 years, has yet to say whether he plans to run again.
“They have stated that half the country are extremists to seize all constituencies…” Navalny wrote in a post on Instagram.
“They haven’t let the strong candidates run in the election… they’re afraid of smart voting,” said Navalny, who has been posting online through his lawyers since he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison in February for parole violations. . he shouts invented.
Friday marks the first anniversary of his poisoning, something he blames on the Kremlin. It rejects what has happened to him as a West-backed smear campaign to harm Russia.
His voting campaign requires followers to sign up and be assigned a candidate judged to have the best chance of beating United Russia in their area.
Navalny’s allies say the campaign has come under government pressure.
According to the protest monitor of OVD-Info, the police reached at least 300 Navalny supporters this week who are listed in a database of registered supporters that was leaked in the spring.
Authorities say Navalny and his allies are extremists seeking to destabilize Russia.
Leonid Volkov, an ally of Navalny, told Reuters that he thought authorities would block the website used to organize the smart voting campaign.
“We are already seeing a lot (measures by the authorities) and the level of hysteria will only increase in the coming month,” he said.
In 2019, Navalny declared his clever voting tactics a success in Moscow’s local elections, after 20 candidates backed by his plan won seats in the city council.
A Kremlin source downplayed the idea of the plan as a threat. The source said the Kremlin was more concerned about dissatisfaction with stagnating or declining living standards.
“Smart voting is not that big of a deal for us in terms of the country. Moscow, St. Petersburg – yes, there may be problems here, but not for the other regions,” the source said.
“The problem that is more of concern to the presidential government is… disaffected people. That could affect the results. But I think United Russia will probably still retain a majority.”
United Russia secured a constitutional majority in the last parliamentary election in 2016, but its rating stood at 27% earlier this month, its lowest in 13 years, according to a state poll.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NewsMadura staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
