2023-09-10 22:05:12
– Large victory for Putin’s party in the annexed territories
President Putin’s United Russia party came first in regional elections in the four territories annexed to Ukraine.
Published today at 12:05 a.m.
The vote comes a few months before the presidential election scheduled for early 2024, which might consolidate Vladimir Putin in power until 2030.
AFP
Moscow claimed Sunday evening the victory of Vladimir Putin’s party in the elections organized in the territories annexed to Ukraine, with more than 70% of the votes, ballots considered “illegal” by Kiev and its allies.
Russia’s Central Election Commission said Sunday evening that the Russian president’s United Russia party came first in these regional elections in the four territories annexed to Ukraine. The President of the Electoral Commission, Ella Pamfilova, welcomed the elections which took place “dynamically, with few violations”.
With these elections spread over three days, from Friday to Sunday, Moscow is trying to legitimize its annexations in Ukraine by voting in the occupied territories in the east and south. Despite strong condemnations from the West, Russia proclaimed in September 2022 the annexation of four Ukrainian territories that it only partially controls – Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Lugansk – following “referendums” not recognized by the International community.
The fighting is still raging there and the Ukrainian army has launched a counter-offensive. In the four annexed Ukrainian regions, the occupation authorities have bent over backwards to present some semblance of normalcy, despite the ongoing fighting. In the Donetsk region, voters cast ballots decorated with the Russian double-headed eagle, while in the Kherson region, Governor Vladimir Saldo declared a non-working Friday so that each citizen might “express their position”.
Muzzled opposition in Russia
The Russians also voted on Sunday in these regional elections without suspense, in a context of muzzled opposition, where critical voices of the Ukrainian conflict are unceremoniously repressed. For more than a year and a half, thousands of Russians have in fact been sentenced, sometimes to heavy sentences, for protesting once morest the offensive in Ukraine.
And no real “outside the system” opposition is represented: the opponents are either in prison or in exile. The outcome of these elections organized to appoint governors, regional deputies and municipal elected officials should therefore not cause any surprises.
The vote comes a few months before the presidential election scheduled for early 2024, which might consolidate Vladimir Putin in power until 2030. In several Russian regions, where the influx of voters is traditionally the largest on Sunday, the vote is also colored by conflict.
Only problem: war
“Everyone is only concerned regarding one problem: war. We have no other problems,” assures Anatoli, an 84-year-old retiree. In Moscow, outgoing mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a Vladimir Putin loyalist in office since 2010, omnipresent on television in recent days to inaugurate new regional train lines or renovated hospitals, was re-elected without difficulty.
Several hundred kilometers southwest of Moscow, in the border regions of Ukraine, regularly targets of attacks from kyiv, the security conditions for the organization of the vote are precarious. The chairman of the Electoral Commission, Ella Pamfilova, has already announced that voting in the town of Chebekino, Belgorod region, has been “postponed due to a high alert level”.
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