‘Noon against Putin’: Russians rally to fulfil Navalny’s last wish
Thousands stage a symbolic protest at polling stations on last day of election
Thousands of people turned up at polling stations across Russia on Sunday to take part in what the anti-kremlin opposition said was a peaceful but symbolic political protest against the re-election of President Vladimir Putin.
In an action called “Noon against Putin”, Russians who oppose the veteran Kremlin leader went to their local polling station at midday to either spoil their ballot paper in protest or to vote for one of the three candidates standing against Putin, who is widely expected to win by a landslide.
Others had vowed to scrawl the name of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died last month in an Arctic prison, on their ballot paper.
Navalny’s allies broadcast videos on Youtube of lines of people queuing up at different polling stations across Russia at midday who they said were there to peacefully protest.
Navalny had endorsed the “Noon against Putin” plan in a message on social media facilitated by his lawyers before he died. The independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper called the planned action “Navalny's political testament”.
“There is very little hope but if you can do something (like this) you should do it. There is nothing left of democracy,” one young woman, who did not give her name and whose face was blurred out by Navalny's team, said at one polling station.
Another young woman at a different polling station, whose identity had been disguised in the same way, said she had voted for the “least dubious” of the three candidates running against Putin.
A male student voting in Moscow told Navalny's channel that people like him who disagreed with the current system needed to go on living their lives regardless.
“History has shown that changes occur at the most unexpected of times,” he said.
Despite the protesters who represent a small fraction of Russia’s 114 million voters Putin is poised to tighten his grip on power in the election that is certain to deliver him a big victory.
The Kremlin casts Navalny’s political allies most of whom are based outside Russia — as dangerous extremists out to destabilise the country on behalf of the West. It says Putin enjoys overwhelming support among ordinary Russians, pointing to opinion polls which put his approval rating above 80 per cent.