Five minutes before there was nothing: only the dreary routine of a poorly attended polling station in the center of Moscow. A few voters who take turns at irregular intervals in front of the assessors’ offices, under close police surveillance.
And suddenly, just long enough to turn his head, a tail formed. Ten meters, then twenty, then thirty, until it spills out of the courtyard of school number 1500, onto the sidewalk of Rue Prosvirine. A crowd of voters the likes of which we have not seen since the start of the Russian presidential election, which takes place from March 15 to 17.
The first in line are a little intimidated, still unsure of their audacity: “We can vote at whatever time we want, it’s still a right in this country”jokes a middle-aged woman, who ends up conceding: “Of course I came specially at noon! In a democracy, it is in the ballot box that we protest; here, we manage as best we can…”
This gathering of voters at a fixed time, on the last day of voting, is the only grain of sand that Vladimir Putin’s opponents have managed to introduce into the relentless electoral machine which should allow the Russian president to stay in power for six more years. , against a backdrop of war in Ukraine and increased repression.
A demonstration scattered throughout the polling stations
The idea was first formulated by Maxime Reznik, an old liberal activist from Saint Petersburg now in exile, before being supported by all democratic opponents, whether in Russia, in exile or in prison: vote together, as much in defiance of power as to be counted, to warm up in the presence of your neighbor. The name of the initiative: “Noon against Putin”. A sort of immense demonstration, necessarily legal, scattered across as many polling stations as there are in Russia.
“Even if I am denied the right to do so, I have a political position and I want to make it known, said a young man in the Moscow line, who like the other people interviewed asked to speak anonymously. We reassure ourselves by telling ourselves that we are not alone, and perhaps we can also reassure the outside world: no, this country is not entirely subject to a cannibalistic madman. »
A little further on, a complete young girl: “We have nothing else to express ourselves legally. Even candidates who were cautiously critical of Putin and the war were sidelined. » His sister, who accompanies him, adds: “By voting on the last day, we make the work of fraudsters more difficult. My voice may be drowned out by the falsifications of electronic voting, but at least it will be counted. If I had come on Friday, I would have had no way of knowing what happened to my report card over the next three days. »
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