Kremlin supporters pressure poll observers

moscow — Police last month detained David Kankiya, an observer at Russia’s forthcoming presidential election, yards from his home in southern Russia. Police said his car may have been used in a crime, according to Kankiya.

Hours later, Kankiya was charged with disobeying the police, something he denies, and jailed for five days by a court. Weeks later, his car tyres were slashed with a knife, he says, and on Tuesday, pro-Kremlin journalists ambushed him.

“I have information that you have insulted the Russian people,” one of the journalists said, a video of the incident shows.

Days before Sunday’s election, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin is on track to win comfortably, Golos, a non-governmental organisation that monitors Russian elections, says it is under unprecedented pressure.

Its problems are part of what Kremlin critics say is a wider campaign by authorities to hinder or silence dissenting voices.

Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead in 2015, while current opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been barred from running in Sunday’s election over what he says is a trumped-up fraud conviction. The Kremlin, which denies involvement in Nemtsov’s murder, wants Putin’s re-election to be viewed as legitimate and largely clean in the West so as not to further damage already poor relations. At home, wary of street protests, the Kremlin is keen that voters see it in the same way. The Kremlin says complaints about a crackdown on dissent are hollow. Individual cases are a matter for the relevant authorities who it says are only trying to uphold the law.

Equally, the Central Election Commission says it will do everything it can to ensure Sunday’s vote is free of fraud and has turned to Golos for advice on how to do that. However, opposition leader Navalny, accused by Putin of being Washington’s pick for president, has predicted the authorities will resort to widespread fraud to deliver a Putin landslide and has spoken of organising post-election protests of the kind that roiled Russia after Putin’s last election victory in 2012.