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The comfortable electoral majority of Russian government candidates had never been so safe or even so discussed . Russia held regional and local elections this Sunday throughout the country. But attention was paid to the legislative assembly (Duma) of Moscow, especially after the electoral authorities refused to register 57 candidates from the extra-parliamentary opposition commanded by dissident Alexei Navalny . This blockade of the most critical unleashed this summer the biggest protests of recent years in the country, and now prevents calibrating the support that Vladimir Putin continues to have in the Russian capital.

The Russian president, who went to vote at a school in the center of Moscow, was asked at the exit if he would have preferred greater diversity and a greater number of electoral candidates. He said that quality was a more important factor than quantity . "In some countries there are 30, 50 or 100 [candidates]," he said in comments offered by the television channel Russia 24, "and the quality of their work does not depend on that. The important thing is not how many they are, but the quality" He said transmitting tranquility. However, hours later, after the closing of the polls in Moscow, the Fund for the Development of Civil Society, one of the leading pollsters, said it would not disseminate ballot box polls in the Moscow municipal elections because many people had rejected answer and the result was not reliable. In some districts he avoided specifying his vote 70%; in others, half of the respondents.

"We are at the beginning of a political crisis," says Stanislav Andreychuk of the Russian NGO Golos, who oversees the elections. "The turning point came" in 2018 after the pension reform, those of the government party went down in the polls, and now we not only see protests in Moscow but other mobilizations related to other non-political issues such as ecology . " From the forecasts of the most conservative, discontent has become visible in other places far from the big cities. Putin's mandate expires constitutionally in 2024, but Andreychuk believes that " there will be no movements until 2021, with the legislative elections ."

In Javarovsk, in eastern Russia, the LDPR ultranationalists, who are third forces in the national parliament, were leading the count. Someone was posing as Golos observers to denounce imposted 'pucherazos' , which in turn served to cover up excesses in other regions where the officials are strong. "In Siberia, the 1990s were used to manipulate the elections, some people were forced to vote, others received money, and others were massively taken to the polls," a Golos spokesman said. Days before Navalny's team warned of attempts to bribe voters and an unusually large number of people who wanted to vote by mail in St. Petersburg , where the official candidate retained the position according to the first results. In the distant Tuva, horse-riding and masked people fired at a bus with observers who were to supervise the elections, deputy Serguei Natarov denounced.

As with the protests that surprised the Russian authorities in 2011 and 2012, again the feeling that no one is sure prevails. The houses or offices of several opponents were registered before and after each protest . Many of them were arrested more than once in recent weeks, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny. During the day yesterday the police arrested a dozen opponents in the center of Moscow, including Novaya Gazeta journalist Ilya Azar, according to this media. Among those arrested were also the band member Pussy Riot, Maria Aliojina, and activist Victoria Ivleva. Apparently, they wore T-shirts in support of those arrested for the demonstrations these days.

Precisely the 'fuel' that has found dissent through the desert of good electoral results is widespread outrage at disproportionate sentences this summer: five years in prison for a tweet frivolizing violence; four for repeatedly protesting; three to use pepper spray; two for pulling the arm of a policeman and wizards to withdraw custody of their son to parents who went to an illegal protest .

Around 56 million voters were summoned to the polls on Sunday throughout Russia. In 16 federated entities, governors were elected by direct vote and in 13 elected deputies from legislative assemblies . In addition, part of the country chose city parliaments, while the capitals of three federated entities elect members of the municipal government. Deputies of the State Duma (Lower House of the Russian Parliament) were also voted in four uninominal constituencies. Given the impossibility of participating in the elections, Navalny and his followers bet everything on the "smart vote" against United Russia , or any candidate supported by the government party. The idea was to prevent him from winning in Moscow and other places where elections are held.

Not only protest the opposition. Also the State: the Russian state communications control agency, Roskomnadzor, denounced that the tech giants Google and Facebook had allowed political publicity during Sunday's regional elections despite being asked to ban such content.

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