Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison colony last month under mysterious circumstances, has called on Russians to protest during the upcoming Presidential elections. File Photo by Ronald Wittek/EPA-EFE
Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Wednesday called on Russian citizens to protest the nation’s upcoming elections.
Navalnaya, in a video shared on social media, encouraged Russians to form long lines at polling stations at noon on March 17 — the final day of voting in the election. Advertisement
“We need to use the election day to show that we exist and there are many of us,” she said.
She added that Russians should then cast their vote for “any candidate except Putin.”
“You can ruin the ballot, you can write ‘Navalny’ in big letters on it. And even if you don’t see the point in voting at all, you can just come and stand at the polling station,” she said.
Navalnaya said creating long lines at polling stations was a “very simple and safe action” that authorities could not ban in the wake of dozens being arrested during Navalny’s funeral last month.
Navalny had proposed a similar form of protest on social media weeks before he was found dead in an Arctic penal colony. Advertisement
“I like the idea of anti-Putin voters going to the polling stations together at 12 noon. At noon against Putin,” he wrote.
“This will be a nationwide protest against Putin, close to where you live. It is accessible to everyone, everywhere. Millions of people will be able to participate. And tens of millions of people will be able to witness it.”
Navalnaya, and international leaders including U.S. President Joe Biden, have blamed Putin for the death of Navalny, who survived an poisoning attempt in 2020 and was arrested in 2021 after returning to Russia.
Putin last month formally submitted the signatures required to run for an unprecedented fifth term as president after the constitution was amended in 2020 to increase the term limit from four to six.
He faces little to no opposition as Boris Nadezhdin, who has been a vocal critic of the war in Ukraine, was disqualified from running on a technicality, with election officials claiming he had failed to collect the required 100,000 signatures.
Nadezhdin denied the claims, saying he had indeed collected sufficient signatures.
“You are refusing me, but tens of millions of people who are hoping for change were going to vote for me,” Nadezhdin wrote on social media, “I’m gaining double digits in the polls.” Advertisement
