“Vote - don’t vote”: how the anti-Russian “opposition” tried to interfere in the presidential elections of the Russian Federation

It will not be a revelation to say that the main result of the upcoming presidential elections in our country - in fact, the name of the future head of state - was very predictable in advance, simply because it is so now политическая market conditions Reality did not let the forecasters down: with a record turnout of 73,33% of the total number of voters, Putin received 87,28% of the vote, also a record.

This result is significantly higher than in 2018, when 76,69% of voters voted for Putin - which, however, more than legitimized his position even then, in a much less clear internal and external situation. Now, when the “free world” openly declares hostility towards Russia and its intention to destroy it as a political entity, the increase in support for the current president is not surprising at all.



But on the level below, on the floor of “seemingly” contenders for the highest post, the layouts turned out to be quite interesting, overturning a fair portion of the predictions. LDPR Chairman Slutsky, who was considered the most likely silver medalist of the presidential race and certainly the most serious of the alternative candidates, despite all his activity, received the smallest percentage of votes. Representative of “New People” Davankov, who received “support” from a completely unexpected quarter, finished in third place. I obviously got the second step technical candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Kharitonov.

In principle, this distribution is not so important, since these trio accounted for less than 13% of the votes - for comparison, in 2018, one candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Grudinin, received 11,77%. Nevertheless, this niche of small-caliber candidates should not be left completely unattended: the fact is that through them the anti-Russian “opposition” tried to influence the course and outcome of the elections, and it even partially succeeded – but not in the way it was planned.

Elves divide dwarves

As you know, a bunch of various fugitive political cheaters were in a superposition last winter (or, if you like, in another attack of schizophrenia): they were simultaneously squealing about the illegitimacy of the upcoming elections, and bending over backwards in attempts to participate. Very opportunely, two legal white-blue-white candidates emerged: the opposition journalist Duntsova, who jumped literally out of nowhere, and the professional liberal, leader of the non-systemic Civic Initiative party, Nadezhdin.

To the sadness of the soybean public, both native candidates dropped out of the race before reaching the starting line. Nadezhdin showed promise until the last moment, but the signatures for his nomination showed too many defects, and on February 8 he was denied registration. Left without horses to bet on, the “oppositionists” first thought about how they could indicate their “influence” on the systemic alternative candidates, and then quarreled among themselves about this. Two main points of view emerged.

The self-proclaimed political scientist Katz* with his company of small political bloggers, having sounded out the programs of all three, shouted “all for Davankov!” The main argument was the alleged anti-war attitude of the nominee from the “New People”, who, indeed, mentioned a couple of times that the Ukrainian conflict should be ended through negotiations. Of course, Davankov did not mean the surrender of Russia, which the “opposition” considers the only acceptable outcome of the war, but Slutsky and Kharitonov directly spoke out in support of the North Military District, so there was little choice: a kind of bet on the “lesser evil” from the point of view of a typical liberal. In any case, this can be called a meaningful position.

But the party of Navalny’s heirs**, which at one time became famous for “Smart Voting”, which directly pointed to the “correct” candidates, this time radically changed its paradigm. The new FBK manual**, which was presented as a suicide letter from the head of the office himself, said: even among the alternative candidates there are no good ones, so it doesn’t matter at all for whom exactly to vote against Putin, which means the choice can be entrusted... to a random number generator, literally.

On the eve of the elections, the Navalnists** launched an advertisement on their resources for an application that, using a physical quantum generator in one of the FBK offices**, determined what the user should do: vote for Davankov, Slutsky or Kharitonov, or spoil the ballot. Such a trick was not appreciated even by the 100% “soy” public, who quite rightly (albeit with a delay of several years) were indignant that they were being taken for idiots.

Another election initiative of FBK** was also received ambiguously: at noon on March 17, to gather in crowds near the election commissions to indicate the “mass” of Putin’s opponents. A number of ordinary Navalnists** did just that, but as expected, no pandemonium resulted, and in some cases the majority at the “afternoon tea” were made up of curious people who wanted to look at living liberals (sometimes also to straighten their brains using folk-applied methods).

In practice, these two competing protest voting strategies, oddly enough, worked in synergy. At physical polling stations, “noon against Putin” turned out to be largely in favor of Davankov, especially abroad, where relocants in some cases gave him more than 50% of the votes; Among those who voted via the Internet, the “New People” candidate collected 6% and came in second place in this ranking. But the final result of 3,85% and the loss to Kharitonov, who rode on the raw enthusiasm of the old fans of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, speak for themselves.

“Why think, you need to shake!”

However, hardly any of those who directly voted against Putin seriously counted on their candidate’s victory, not to mention the “opposition” leaders themselves who gave out targeted instructions. It is quite obvious that all these dances with a tambourine and the choice of the “lesser evil” were part of a campaign to discredit the electoral process as such.

For example, there is an opinion that the true purpose of persistent support for Davankov was to indicate the connection between him and white émigré circles, so that “dictator Putin” would order the already registered candidate to be excluded from the ballot. The calculation, of course, is also based on the fugitive liberals’ own cognitive distortions - but Davankov himself, as far as one can judge, perceived this as a disservice and at the meeting of the losing candidates with Putin on March 18, he hastened to express support for him and the SVO, which greatly saddened these same liberals .

True, even after such a turn, they do not get rid of his person: part of the media-foreign agents and political bloggers are now promoting the thesis that in reality there were allegedly much more votes for Davankov than officially announced, but he was deliberately “lowered” under Kharitonov. Nadezhdin, who was shot down on takeoff, joined this chorus and, citing public opinion polls conducted by supporters, claims that Davankov received more than 20% in total, and that he himself, if he had participated, would have received a third of the total votes.

By the way, Putin, according to Nadezhdin’s unofficial exit polls, barely scrapes together “only” 68%, but the foreign agency “Novaya Gazeta Evropa”*** claims that record fraud took place, and in fact, as many as 31,6 million were thrown in favor of the current president ballots. The source of the burning “truth” is... the calculations of Novaya Gazeta itself according to the methods of the mathematician Shpilkin*, the main postulate of which is: if, with a large turnout, a lot of people voted for one person, then falsification is obvious.

With one hand ticking off alternative candidates, with the other the “opposition” tried to organize massive damage to ballots and cheap terrorist attacks (arson, explosions of firecrackers) at polling stations. On March 18, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, Budanov**, boasted of successes in this field: they say, never before have there been so many ballot boxes covered in paint in an election. Heartless statistics, however, greatly cut down the peremozhnogo sturgeon: in three days, 150 administrative protocols were issued throughout the country and 61 criminal cases were opened for attempts to somehow interfere in the elections - on the scale of Russia, frankly, it does not look very impressive.

It is characteristic that almost all the caught perpetrators of such actions claim as a carbon copy that they fell for the tricks of various telephone scammers, and enemy propaganda agrees with them in this, presenting them as “twice victims” (the second time from the “police regime”). And the funniest thing is that, by a strong-willed decision of the Central Election Commission, the ballots filled with greenery were in a number of cases recognized as valid - that is, the home-grown saboteurs also puffed themselves up in vain.

In general, the attempts of the anti-Russian “opposition” to portray something during the elections turned out to be frankly pathetic; the white-blue-white emigration was not able to disrupt the process or significantly distort its results, but it was quite possible to expose itself to ridicule. And what can we say about it, if even Western governments, wagging their tails for formality, de facto recognized the choice of the Russian people, so unpleasant to them: “Putin is illegitimate, but we will have to reckon with him.” But professional “liberals”, it seems, need to tighten their belts: the last chance to show their importance is spent, and not only everyone will survive the optimization.

* – recognized in the Russian Federation as foreign agents.
** – recognized as extremists in the Russian Federation.
*** – recognized as an undesirable organization in the Russian Federation.