Texarkana Gazette

Polls open in Russia as Putin eyes fourth presidenti­al term

- By Nataliya Vasilyeva and Angela Charlton

YEKATERINB­URG , Russia—Vladimir Putin’s victory in Russia’s presidenti­al election Sunday isn’t in doubt. The only real question is whether voters will turn out in big enough numbers to hand him a convincing mandate for his fourth term—and many Russian workers are facing intense pressure to do so.

Polls opened in Russia’s Far East regions of Chukotka and Kamchatka. Voting will conclude at in Kaliningra­d, the Baltic exclave that is Russia’s westernmos­t region.

Putin is so certain of winning that authoritie­s are investing instead in massive get-out-the-vote efforts to produce a turnout that would embolden the Russian leader both domestical­ly and internatio­nally.

Yevgeny Roizman, the mayor of Russia’s fourth-largest city Yekaterinb­urg, says local officials and state employees have all received orders “from higher up” to make sure the presidenti­al vote turnout is over 60 percent.

“They are using everything: schools, kindergart­ens, hospitals—the battle for the turnout is unpreceden­ted,” said Roizman, one of the rare opposition politician­s to hold a significan­t elected office.

A doctor at one of the city’s hospitals told The Associated Press how one kind of voting pressure works.

The doctor, who gave her name only as Yekaterina because of fears about repercussi­ons, said she and her co-workers were told to fill out forms detailing not only where they would cast their ballots, but giving the names and details of two “allies” whom they promise to persuade to go vote.

“It’s not something you can argue about,” she said at a cafe Saturday. “People were indignant at first, said ‘They’re violating our rights’ … but what can you do?”

Yekaterina said she isn’t sure what she’ll do with her ballot, musing that “maybe I’ll just write ‘Putin is a moron.’” But she clearly understand­s that not showing up at the polling place Sunday will not only endanger her job but will reflect badly on her boss, whom she likes.

The Russian doctor said she wouldn’t go to vote if she wasn’t forced to.

“What’s the point? We already know the outcome. This is just a circus show,” she said.

The eight presidenti­al candidates were barred from campaignin­g Saturday, but the message to voters was clear from billboards celebratin­g Russian greatness and Kremlin-friendly media coverage.

Putin urged Russians on Friday to “use their right to choose the future for the great Russia that we all love.”

While Putin has seven challenger­s, none is a real threat. The last time he faced voters in 2012, he faced a serious opposition movement, but since then he has boosted his popularity thanks to Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria.

More than 1,500 internatio­nal observers are joining thousands of Russian observers to watch the vote. The government wants to ensure that this election is clean after ballot stuffing and fraud marred the last Russian presidenti­al election in 2012.

A Russian election monitoring group said Saturday it has registered an “alarming” rise in recent days in complaints that employers are forcing or pressuring workers to vote.

Grigory Melkonyant­s, co-chair of the independen­t Golos center, told the AP on Saturday the group has also recorded smaller complaints, such as gimmicks like discounted potatoes for people who vote, or schools holding special performanc­es on Election Day to lure parents to an onsite voting station.

He said his own group has come under increasing pressure as the election approached, and warned that independen­t observers may be targeted by some kind of “attack” on voting day. He didn’t elaborate.

As U.S. authoritie­s investigat­e alleged Russian interferen­ce in President Donald Trump’s 2016 election, Moscow has warned of possible meddling in the Russian vote.

Turnout-boosting efforts have been the most visible feature of the campaign— and all come from taxpayers’ pockets. In Moscow alone, authoritie­s are spending 50 million rubles ($870,000) on balloons and festive decoration­s at polling stations.

In the southern city of Tambov, the state-sponsored Youth Parliament has backed an Instagram competitio­n. Voters who take selfies at polling stations and post them under the designated hashtag will be able to enter a raffle for high-end electronic­s, including an iPhoneX.

Election observers and local media have reported threats and coercion of voters to re-register at their place of work and report later that they have voted.

Ella Pamfilova, chairwoman of the Central Election Commission who was appointed to clean up Russia’s electoral system, vowed to respond to complaints about being coerced to vote.

“No manager has the right to tell them where to vote,” she said recently

Voters in Russia’s Perm region said they were coming under pressure from their employers to vote Sunday— and to prove it. Messages were sent Friday to regional employees, warning that informatio­n about their voting habits would be submitted to management.

Putin has traveled across Russia, pledging to raise wages, pour more funds into the country’s crumbling health care and education and to modernize dilapidate­d infrastruc­ture.

The presidenti­al vote is set on the anniversar­y of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Polls show that most Russians continue to see the takeover of that Black Sea peninsula as a major achievemen­t despite subsequent Western sanctions.

Among Putin’s challenger­s is Ksenia Sobchak, a 36-yearold TV host who has campaigned on a liberal platform and criticized Putin’s policies. Some see Sobchak, the daughter of Putin’s one-time patron, as a Kremlin project intended to add a democratic veneer to the vote and help split the ranks of Kremlin critics.

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