Correspondent in Moscow
Initially, it was to be a "
meeting with elected officials
", a formula commonly invoked to organize an unauthorized demonstration.
In fact, more than a thousand people gathered on Saturday in the center of Moscow at the call of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) to denounce "
massive fraud
" in the Duma elections of 17-19. September.
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In the crowded Pushkin Square, Party figures harangued a compact but calm crowd, such as Valéri Rachkine, Communist headliner in Moscow who criticized a "
colossal electoral fraud
" in the capital. The party in power, United Russia, "
stole the seats of the deputies
", hammered Valéri Rachkine, holding the "
hard
"
wing
of the KPRF. The latter, with 57 deputies (+15 compared to the Assembly elected in 2016), ranks second, behind United Russia (324 deputies, against 343 previously), among the five parties authorized to sit in the Duma, all more or less committed to the cause of the Kremlin.
If a few arrests took place at the start of the demonstration, the police reaction mainly consisted in "drowning" the speeches under a flood of music spat out at full volume by powerful loudspeakers ...
Electronic voting in question
The anger of KPRF voters, joined by a number of supporters of the so-called “non-system” opposition - including Alexeï Navalny, imprisoned for eight months, is the figurehead - was triggered by the manipulations suspected during electronic voting.
In six regions of the country, remote voting (from a computer) was possible, as well as in Moscow where 1.9 million voters (out of 7 million registered voters) used it.
But while electronic voting was supposed to be fast and reliable, the final results were not known in the capital until the morning of the election day, and gave rise to some curious "corrections".
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Thus, while the opposition, especially the Communist, was in the lead in nine out of fifteen constituencies with 99% of the ballots counted, “United Russia”, where its allies finally won everywhere after the injection of electronic voting in the results…
According to the opposition, it was for the power to thwart the "smart vote", the strategy put in place by supporters of Navalny calling for votes in favor of the candidates best placed to beat "United Russia", often communists.
In front of the outcry, a recount of the electronic vote will take place, and a report is expected at the end of the year, but without possible impact on the official results, we have already warned.
At the end of an almost tailor-made election, “United Russia” therefore retains its two-thirds majority, sufficient to revise the Constitution.
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According to observers, the “rectifications” made to the results would have made it possible to minimize the degradation in public opinion of the image of “United Russia” and to stem the advance of the KPRF, which risked becoming too powerful an opponent. At the national level, “
the real support of the Communists is estimated at around 30%, while their official score is 18.9%; for its part, "United Russia" would in fact only obtain 35% while its result is 49.2%
", underlines Andrei Kolesnikov, of the Carnegie center in Moscow.
On Saturday, when the demonstration was being held, Vladimir Putin was meeting the leaders of the five parties which had won seats in parliament, including that of the Communist Party, Gennady Ziouganov.
The master of the Kremlin hailed on this occasion the "
convincing victory
" of United Russia.
