Xavier Colas Moscow

Moscow

Updated Sunday, March 17, 2024-13:08

  • Direct Witness Insults on the ballot against an inevitable Putin

Vote all at once so that the crowd is the silent sign of

discontent

: it is the latest occurrence of Russian dissidence in the face of elections that can only have one winner: Vladimir Putin.

Alexei Navalny is dead and the only pacifist candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, was not allowed to run in the Russian

presidential elections

, which end today, Sunday.

Putin is running against three unpopular candidates 'tolerated' by the regime and a sector of the dissidents has chosen to protest by going to vote all at once, right at noon.

The police have monitored the electoral process closely on this last day of voting, which by early afternoon had already reached 60% participation.

In Moscow before 12:00 people

began to gather at the polling stations

.

Queues formed especially in central Moscow neighborhoods.

But even in slightly more remote areas in the north of the city, lines were observed that extended to the street and began to form just before twelve to disappear an hour later.

Throughout the country there were more than 50 arrests on Sunday morning, some simply for going to vote at that time.

"Everyone at noon" was the slogan in many chats.

It is the supporters of

Alexei Navalny

, who died under unclear circumstances in an Arctic prison last month, who have prepared this initiative.

Weeks ago they asked Russians to attend a protest today called "Noon against Putin" to show their disagreement with an election they consider a fraud.

Some Russians brought ballots to Navalny's grave at the Borisov cemetery.

The opponent's name was written on them.

"From the beginning of the street you can't see the end of the line," exclaimed Mijail, who went around that time to vote in the center of the capital.

Queues occurred not only in different schools in Moscow.

Also in cities such as St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk, Perm, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk.

All this despite

pressure from the police and authorities

.

The Moscow prosecutor's office had warned three times about the "consequences" that this protest could have.

They threatened with prison those who summoned teenagers to participate in these acts.

Images of Russian embassies around the world with very long lines to vote were shared on networks.

Yulia Navalnaya

, widow of Alexei Navalny, attended the 'Noon Against Putin' rally in Berlin.

There at least 2,000 people queued in front of the embassy.

Queues of hundreds of meters also formed at Russian embassies and consulates in Belgrade, Tel Aviv, Paris and The Hague (Netherlands).

Also in capitals of the former USSR such as Astana and Almaty (Kazakhstan), Tashkent (Uzbekistan), Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), Yerevan (Armenia).

Some Russians have reported to independent media that they received messages from bots accusing them of supporting "extremist ideas" and demanding that they not take part in this initiative.

At least 23 people were arrested in Kazan, seven in Moscow and five in St. Petersburg.

The total number of detainees throughout Russia exceeds 50.

Human Rights Project

reported that a resident of Kazan was detained because he went to the polling station at noon.

According to the local publication 'Groza', at one of the polling stations in Kazan the police confronted young people who came to vote just at 12:00: "They say we should come back later, in one or two hours. Either we leave now or they stop us," denounced a neighbor.

St. Petersburg activist

Vitaly Ioffe

, who wrote "Damn everyone" on a ballot, was detained near the subway after voting.

The Golos movement, which ensures the cleanliness of the elections, released a video showing how they filled a ballot box with false votes; a recording taken by a surveillance camera at a polling station in the Krasnodar region revealed the 'pout'.

The Central Election Commission promised to investigate.