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Parliamentary elections: Opposition in Russia accuses Kremlin party of electoral fraud

2021-09-19T21:17:49.155Z


According to the first partial results, the ruling party "United Russia" asserted itself as the strongest force in the parliamentary elections. Opposition politicians point out election manipulation.


Enlarge image

The opposition around the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny was excluded from the vote

Photo: Valentin Egorshin / picture alliance / dpa / AP

After the parliamentary elections in Russia, the opposition around the imprisoned government critic Alexej Navalny accused the Kremlin party "United Russia" of electoral fraud. She feels reminded of the 2011 vote, when "the election was stolen from us," wrote Nawalny's spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch on Twitter on Sunday evening. "It is impossible to come to terms with it." The Navalny confidante Leonid Volkov said: "These elections are dirtier than the 2011 one - much dirtier."

Volkov also criticized the fact that in the capital Moscow, even several hours after the polling stations had closed, the results of the online voting had not yet been published - the election commission had published the results for other regions. "Obviously they are waiting to adjust the numbers," said the Navalny team. The counting of the ballot papers continued on Monday night. Accordingly, the Kremlin party led.

The opposition's team had called for a protest vote against "United Russia".

The voters should therefore choose the most promising candidate - just not that of the Kremlin party, in order to break their monopoly on power.

Volkov announced that the "clever vote" had been successful in individual regions.

The opposition around the imprisoned Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny was excluded from the vote.

To the annoyance of the Kremlin opponents, the Internet giants Google, YouTube, Apple and the news channel Telegram had previously deleted the Navalny team's recommendations for “smart voting”.

Specific names were given for which voters should vote.

The content banned by the authorities was still available on Twitter.

The Navalny team resisted criticism that it was used to advertise communist applicants, for example.

Election observers report thousands of violations

Independent observers from the Golos organization had listed thousands of violations across the country - mostly with photo and video recordings.

The Golos expert Andrei Busin called the extent "significant" - especially in Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg.

There, people literally fought for their votes, as can be seen on videos.

In many cases, ballot boxes were crammed full of pre-filled voting slips.

There were also reports of compulsory voting, for example among government employees, as well as multiple votes.

The central election commission announced that it would investigate the complaints.

More than 8,500 ballots had been canceled by Sunday evening, it said.

Election supervisor Ella Pamfilowa said that twelve cases have so far been confirmed in which packs of ballot papers have been stuffed into the urns.

The communists, too, who, in view of the widespread dissatisfaction with the Kremlin's policies, are hoping for an increase in votes, complained of violations in many cases.

They announced protests.

kim / dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-09-19

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