Russian democratic opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was prohibited by the Russian Federation’s electoral commission from standing for election for president next spring, called today for a boycott of the elections. Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin, who controls the commission, is seeking a fourth term.
Putin’s authoritarian regime does not permit free and fair elections, both by barring candidates from being eligibility to be elected, or by imprisoning, killing or driving regime critics into exile, and by generally being intolerant of dissent. For example, Russia does not tolerate a free press, the freedom of peaceful assembly or even independent polling. As a result, only the ruling and allied parties have significant representation in the Russian Parliament or were permitted to offer candidates for the last presidential election. Navalny, who, like other regime critics or dissidents, has been persecuted by the Russian regime on typical trumped-up charges and for exercising the freedom of peaceful assembly, had gathered the requisite signatures to have his name on the presidential ballot under the oft-ignored Russian constitution. The opposition boycott would remove any legitimacy for Putin’s reelection.
Putin’s regime is now threatening Navalny with more prosecution for the election boycott call. Election boycotts have long been an effective tool of the democratic opposition in many dictatorships. The ex-KGB agent Putin, who laments the breakup of the Soviet Union, realizes that he would never obtain political legitimacy if Russia were truly a free, representative republic.
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