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With most of the polls closed and 15% of the counted regions, as many as 71% of voters support amending the Russian constitution as quoted from Time, Thursday (2/7/2020).
Even so, critics consider the referedum to have been undermined by pressure on voters and a number of other irregularities.
Massive propaganda campaigns and the failure of the opposition to meet coordinated challenges helped Putin get the results he wanted. But the referendum could eventually erode its position because of unconventional methods used to increase participation and dubious legal basis.
Kremlin critics and independent election observers question official figures.
“We see the neighboring area, and the anomaly is clear – there are areas where the number of voters has artificially increased (pushed), there are areas that are more or less real,” Grigory Melkonyants, joint chairman of the Golos election monitoring group, told The Associated Press that was quoted Fox News.
Analyst Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin political consultant, said Putin’s push to hold the vote, despite the fact that Russia has thousands of new cases of Corona virus infection every day, reflects its potential weaknesses.
“Putin lacked confidence in the inner circle and he was worried about the future,” Pavlovsky said. “He wants proof of public support that is indisputable,” he added.
Although parliamentary approval of the changes was enough to make it into law, the 67-year-old Russian president laid down his constitutional plan for voters to show their broad support and add a democratic layer to them. But then the Corona virus pandemic swallowed Russia, forcing it to postpone the vote which was actually carried out on April 22.
In Moscow, activists briefly lay down on the Red Square, forming the number “2036” with their bodies as a form of protest before the police stopped them. Several other actions in Moscow and St. Petersburg staged a one-man action and the police did not intervene.
The authorities made a massive effort to persuade teachers, doctors, workers in public sector companies and others who were paid by the state to vote. Reports emerged from all over the country where managers forced people to vote.
Kremlin critics and independent observers point out that pressure on voters, coupled with new opportunities to manipulate votes when the ballot box is not guarded at night, erodes voting standards to new lows.
Many criticized the Kremlin for bringing together more than 200 proposed amendments together in one package without giving voters the opportunity to distinguish between them.
“I chose to oppose the new amendments to the constitution because everything looks like a circus,” said Yelena Zorkina (45) after the vote in St. Petersburg.
“How can people vote for all if they agree with some amendments but not with others?” he blurted out.
Putin’s supporters are not discouraged because they cannot vote separately for proposed changes. Taisia Fyodorova, a 69-year-old retiree in St. Petersburg, said he supported because he trusted the government and president Putin.
In a frantic attempt to get votes, polling workers set up ballot boxes in the yard and playground, on tree stumps and even in car trunks – settings that are not likely to be ridiculed on social media that make it impossible to ensure clean sounds. At the same time, monitoring voting becomes more challenging because of the more complex hygiene requirements and regulations for election observers.
Observers warn that the new methods used by the dubious authorities to increase the number of voters, combined with many bureaucratic obstacles that hinder independent monitoring, will undermine the legitimacy of the vote.
(ber)
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