Alexei Navalny would certainly have liked how much stress he was still causing the Kremlin even from the grave. The mountain of flowers for him at the Borisovskoye cemetery is getting higher every day. And the Russian authorities appear to view his very last call for protest as the biggest threat this election weekend. Nothing can go wrong if Vladimir Putin wants to be confirmed in office. Only a high turnout and an even higher victory have the desired effect: to show that the entire country is behind the Kremlin boss.
Shortly before his death, Navalny published an idea to disrupt this plan: everyone should simply come to the polling stations at the same time, exactly at twelve o’clock on Sunday afternoon. Queues of people at this time would show how many Russians would rather listen to the dead Kremlin opponent than to Putin – despite all the risks. It is unlikely that there will be a large turnout for the “Lunch Against Putin” campaign because there are so many election offices and people would first have to muster up the courage to do so. The Moscow public prosecutor’s office nevertheless immediately threatened criminal proceedings for obstructing the election, which could result in up to five years in prison. It has become dangerous to vote on Sunday afternoon.
This vote is more opaque than any before
In general, those who are against Putin in Russia hardly have any opportunity to show this without risk. There are four candidates on the list: Vladimir Putin and three straw men from State Duma parties loyal to the Kremlin. Voting has been going on since Friday morning and the first photos of invalid ballot papers have appeared on the Internet. Some simply wrote “Nawalny” across it, others “No Putin. No war.” Others simply checked all the boxes, making the ballot invalid. People post photos of it online so that their protest can be heard. Because this vote is more opaque than any before. Many voters vote electronically. And there are no longer any independent observers in the election offices because only the candidates themselves could give them access. And they follow the Kremlin.
There is no longer any real opposition in Russia. The clearest criticism of the Kremlin currently comes either from imprisoned politicians or from relatives of mobilized soldiers. The group “Putj domoj” has called on its Telegram channel with 70,000 readers not only to go to the polls, but also to “make our voice louder in a more radical way: spoiling the ballot papers.” So far, the group has held back from making political statements, only calling for the return of the mobilized men. But there is now no candidate who wants to take care of demobilization, the group writes on Telegram, they need “a clear signal of our protest.”
“Sunday lunch” has become a code word
Not only can you scribble on ballot papers, some people have also done this with election posters. They are strangely meaningless: On a white background they simply say “Presidential Election 2024” and next to them is a V for “Victory”. Others read “Together we are a force – let’s vote for Russia.” The opposition youth organization Wesna has published photos of modified posters online: “Together we are a force – let’s not vote for Putin.” On others it was simply added: 17.3. and 12 p.m. Everyone knows what is meant.
When jailed Moscow opposition figure Ilya Yashin was asked at a court hearing on Thursday whether he had a recommendation for the election, the judge forbade him to answer. An employee of the independent news channel Sota was in the hall and received a quote from the political prisoner: If he were free, Yashin said, he would come to his polling station at twelve o’clock sharp on Sunday afternoon. “I’m sure I would have met many decent people there whose views are close to mine.” Yashin had previously been sentenced to eight years in prison for discrediting the army.
Others advocate a boycott of the election
The second prominent political prisoner, Vladimir Kara-Mursa, also reported from prison. Putin needs this election to create a semblance of legitimacy, he wrote in a commentary for the Washington Post. He advised not to do him this favor: “The only logical, the only honest political reaction of the world’s democracies would be to refuse to recognize Vladimir Putin as the legitimate head of state of Russia after May 7th,” he wrote. Putin’s current term ends on May 7th.
Kara-Mursa must serve 25 years in prison for alleged treason. He is close to the liberal Yabloko party, the only real opposition party that still exists in Russia. Yabloko refrained from calling for protests, but recommended that her supporters either not participate at all or invalidate the ballot. Party founder Grigory Javlinsky wrote that Putin’s three opponents all belonged to parties “that unanimously voted for repressive and militaristic laws in the State Duma.” There was no alternative on the ballot paper to the government’s policy of “continuing hostilities and killing people,” he said, justifying the boycott call.
Russians in exile can also cast their votes
For many, the greatest protest is to withdraw completely, to leave Russia, to no longer be part of this captive society. For decades, critics of the government have been going into exile because they no longer believed in a democratic Russia. For example, after Putin’s return to the Kremlin in 2012, when it became clear that there would be no liberalization for the time being. But never before in the new Russia have so many opposition members been abroad as they are currently, fleeing increasing repression. They live in Germany and Lithuania, in Poland and Georgia, Latvia and Armenia. They hope for change from there and can do little about it themselves.
Natalia Ivanova belongs to “Demokrati-ja”, one of the many exile organizations in Europe, all of which essentially have the same wishes: a democratic Russia and an end to the war against Ukraine. Ivanova lives in Berlin. On Sunday, Russia’s main election day, she will go to a “Lunchtime against Putin” rally that Democrati-ja is organizing with other Russian exile groups. Street actions, presence and showing the flag, they can’t do much more. She can cast her vote at the Russian embassy in Berlin: “I will put at least two crosses on the voting slip and write Navalny on it,” she says on the phone. So invalidate the vote, “the main thing is against Putin.” Democrati-ja belongs to “Platforma”, a Europe-wide alliance that claims to consist of 80 anti-war organizations, democracy movements, human rights activists and feminists. And that is only a small part of the Russian exile opposition.
The spectrum is large. In addition to organizations such as Democrati-ja or the Munich exile group “Free Russians eV”, there are well-known names of Russian opposition activists. A few days after the start of the war, the Russian “Anti-War Committee” was founded in February 2022, with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kara-Mursa. The Free Russia Forum, founded by Kasparov in 2016, holds conferences twice a year in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius about the future of Russia and tries to draft a new constitution, hoping one day for peaceful and democratic change. Among those taking part are the former liberal Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov and writer Dmitry Bykov.
In Russia, such attempts are of course condemned. Since last week, Kasparov has not only been considered a “foreign agent”, he is now also a “terrorist” and “extremist” for the Russian authorities. Leonid Volkov, a Navalny confidant, was attacked with a hammer in Lithuania this week and his arm was broken. The Navalny camp can practically only work from abroad. This is exactly what Navalny had always rejected because he believed that he no longer had any influence from abroad on the people in Russia.
The Russian exiles are trying to reach the Russian population via various YouTube channels. YouTube is not yet blocked. The program of “Populjarnajapolitika” with analyzes and interviews is popular. It has more than two million subscribers. “You can get information in Russia if you want,” says Natalia Ivanova from Democrati-ja. “Direct communication with the people of Russia is difficult,” she says, and the war cannot be stopped from abroad. But she doesn’t want to talk about powerlessness. Navalny didn’t do that either, says the Russian.
So far, the exile critics have not had a common course
One problem for the Russian exiles who are critical of the government is that there is currently no one they can rally behind. Svetlana Tichanowskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader, is seen as an accepted reference person for the Belarusian refugees. Things are different with the Russian exiles. Garry Kasparov, for example, is in favor of a boycott of the vote, while others such as activist Maxim Katz recommend voting for candidate Vladislav Davankov. And Yulia Navalnaya? Immediately after his death, Navalny’s widow announced that he would continue his work. “Now everything depends on Julija Navalnaya,” says Katz in an interview with the Novaya Gazeta. Europe. “She can unite the opposition if she wants to.” But it would still be an opposition outside Russia.
So the opposition outside is active but helpless. And the opposition in Russia is barely visible and trapped. By the way, long lines already formed in front of some polling stations on Friday. Many Russians’ bosses simply expect them to vote. Then you can get it over with quickly.