Putin settles some elections plagued by irregularities and opens a new chapter of the war

Putin settles elections plagued by irregularities and opens a new chapter of war The Kremlin party, United Russia, obtains 57% of the votes at the start of the count in elections where only the government has access to the electronic voting system The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, wanted his legislative elections to be a demonstration of support for his invasion of Ukraine. A solitary move in which he excluded all factions that advocated for a truce. His party, United Russia, obtains 57% of the votes with the count at 33% of the Central Election Committee. All this, amidst which local authorities consider the largest bombardment the Russian capital has experienced since the great invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022. And now, after this procedure, Russians wonder what the next step for the leader will be. This result of United Russia exceeds the 55% target set by the Kremlin for its Presidential Administration to have a supermajority in the State Duma, the Parliament. In second place with 14% is the Communist Party, also loyal to Putin, followed by three other satellite formations of the president. Marking slogans on the ballot paper can lead to a criminal case in Russia, but the party leader Yabloko, Nikolái Rybakov, made this gesture of defiance in front of cameras and police when casting his vote this Sunday. "For peace" and "for a ceasefire agreement," he wrote in green, the color of his party, and red, the color of blood, on the ballots he slipped into the ballot box. The Kremlin celebrated its elections without the presence of any candidate who defended a ceasefire and with at least 2,188 political prisoners in its prisons, according to the human rights organization OVD-Info. Furthermore, the few members of Yabloko allowed in single constituencies were convicted for the opaque count of the electronic vote, a system that has branded even the faithful Communist Party with fraud. Not many Russians trusted that the elections were clean, but they still went to the polls. "It is necessary, we have to show that there are people who disagree and that the regime does not have blind and universal support. It is a totalitarian system, it is built in silence," said a voter leaving school No. 373 in Moscow. "It is necessary that the authorities take into account that there are people who disagree when they make their decisions," she added anonymously. In the corridors of the polling station there was a queue of machines to enter the electronic vote—a nonsense since this can be done from home—and they had a plastic basket as if they were real ballot boxes. The opposition, and even loyal parties like the Communist Party, denounce that internet voting is the Kremlin's main tool to manipulate the elections. The Moscow system is different from the one used in the rest of the country, the DEG system, although in both cases only the authorities have access to its inner workings. The electoral committees only received the final results, and their code was not public: no one knew if the votes could be manipulated or spied upon by the Kremlin. "The authorities are promoting electronic voting with prizes and competitions. It is not like with ballot boxes, everything can be changed in a second and no one can prove anything," stated Alina, an observer of Yabloko. "Anyone who wants a paper ballot must sign a form," added the observer. "We cannot investigate anything with electronic voting, it leaves no trace in the process. The more people vote electronically, the more difficult it will be to prove falsification." Likewise, federal law No. 67 provides a series of guarantees for observers, but this supervisor denounced its non-compliance in that polling station during the three days of voting. "They forced all observers to leave the center while the commission members withdrew to an office. They remained there after the polling station closed," lamented Alina, who also observed a series of errors in the copies she received from postal voting. The head of that polling station declined to comment on the progress of the elections with this newspaper. The observer of United Russia also avoided making a statement. "No comments, see you later," he declared. Observers and Russian citizens shared other alleged irregularities on the Internet. In some centers of Moscow, such as number 1546, they did not deliver paper ballots under the excuse of a computer "error". Furthermore, an entire building on Kólskaya street could not vote because it was not included in the electoral roll. Alleged Irregularities In polling station 60 in St. Petersburg, the ballot boxes were changed at night; in the Komi republic, there were packages with dozens of ballots already marked with Putin's party; and a deputy of the Communist Party circulated a video in which a member of polling station 343 in the Cheremia region flooded a ballot box with votes when the observers left. The Kremlin again excluded independent OSCE observers, but brought in a trip organized for a group of Westerners to whom it had already invited to previous elections. "These are some of the most transparent, participatory, and pluralistic elections I have seen," recounted Lois Pérez Leira, a Hispanic-Argentine member of Sovintern [Soviet Socialist International], an organization promoted by a party loyal to Putin, Just Russia. His boss, Sergéi Mirónov, was an intimate friend of the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgueni Prigozhin. "[The authorities] have explained the functioning of the electoral process to us. There are aspects that we neither control nor know. Let's say, this type of criticism that you tell me," Pérez Leira explains when asked about the denunciations by the communists themselves about electronic vote fraud and the exclusions and detentions of their members. "I met with Just Russia, but in the time I am here, I do not have the possibility to interview the different political parties. It is not that one is 15 days," points out Pérez Leira, who is in the process of founding "a Russian-PR Spanish party," called Left Federal, along with Javier Madrazo, former coordinator of Ezker Batua. "The lesser of two evils" After the veto of Yabloko, the opposition divided again over the strategy to follow in the elections. Some dissidents in exile, such as Maxim Katz and the team of the deceased Alexéi Navalni, developed a list of alternative candidates that could erode the victory of United Russia. Yabloko, however, argued that voting for formations loyal to the Kremlin was voting for the war, and recommended that everyone listen to their conscience. "We have chosen the lesser of two evils," two women said when leaving polling station 373 in Moscow. Both had marked their ballots for the Communist Party. "At least this party expresses its disagreement and is the loudest," one of them sighed. The opposition in exile called for voting at noon on Sunday to illustrate the criticism of the regime with long queues, as in the 2024 presidential elections. Those elections took place just after the poisoning of the opposition leader Alexéi Navalni in prison, but two years have passed and the opposition itself has fragmented. This year, the voters who went to polling station number 373 at that time were as few as the fingers on their hands. The same happened in many other polling stations in Moscow. "I supported the protest and was damn alone," Anna recounted from another polling station. "The actions of the Russian opposition are effective!" she added with irony, although the dissent managed to show some polling stations where the queues were relatively long. Any other act of protest could pose a serious risk. "An anti-war message can be interpreted as an action to discredit the Russian army," reminded Dmitri Anisimov, spokesperson for OVD-Info, El País. Yabloko distributed a leaflet in its headquarters symbolizing the times Russia is living: Dissemination of Yabloko's electoral propaganda: Basic safety rules. "The party uses the slogan For peace and freedom since 2022 [start of the great invasion of Ukraine]. In this time, not a single volunteer has been processed," the formation said. "We all know that these elections are a referendum and we must demonstrate that we are against the policies of the current government," Irina [fictitious name], 22 years old, said to this newspaper before her first elections in a life she has only known putinism. She never participated in any protest either, and her formation rejects calling them because they are a "dangerous time for people."