The Russian telecoms gendarme on Monday, September 6 blocked a website of the imprisoned opponent Alexeï Navalny where voters could obtain instructions to vote against the Kremlin candidates in the September legislative elections.
Read alsoThe opponent Navalny still pugnacious despite the prison
In a statement sent to AFP, the federal service Roskomnadzor said it had suspended access to the votesmart.appspot.com site because, according to it, it was being used to continue the activities of an "
extremist organization
". Legislative elections will be held from September 17 to 19 in Russia without the participation of Alexeï Navalny's allies, excluded from the ballot or forced into exile since the banning of their organizations, declared in June "
extremist
". Since this ban, the main sites of the opponent have been blocked in Russia.
Alexeï Navalny, sentenced in February to two and a half years in prison in a case he denounces as a political one, called on his supporters to vote in each constituency for the candidate best placed to beat that of the Kremlin.
This “
Smart Voting
” strategy
has had some success in local elections since 2019, especially in Moscow.
Last week, Roskomnadzor once again called on Google and Apple to remove the opponent's election app, requests that have gone unheeded.
Between economic stagnation and corruption scandals, President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party suffers from low popularity.
According to the polling institute close to the authorities Vtsiom, he obtained only 27.3% of favorable opinions.
Read alsoRussia: the Kremlin intensifies its offensive to silence dissenting voices
It should nevertheless triumph, in particular because the critical voices of power, which could have benefited from the discontent, suffered increased repression ahead of the elections.