Voting in Russia: Election observer faints after police arrest

The Russian liberal opposition party Yabloko announced that one of their election observers fainted today when he was arrested by police near a polling station in St. Petersburg, on the second day of the parliamentary elections.

Voting to elect members of the State Duma is the first parliamentary election in Russia since Moscow launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the three-day election, which began on Friday and ends on Sunday, there is virtually no opposition and it is almost certain that the current authorities’ political dominance will be secured.

The Yabloko party stated that officials at the polling station accused their observer of attempting to disrupt the election and called the police, who used force against him.

It is unclear whether he received emergency medical assistance when he fainted, the party said in a statement on Telegram today, adding that the detained observer was taken to a police station and charged with disobeying police orders.

Yabloko is the only registered political party that has dared to criticize Russia’s war in Ukraine, and the Russian Supreme Court has banned it from participating in the elections, leaving it with only a few dozen candidates running for single-member seats, where individuals rather than parties are nominated.

Some politicians who opposed the war were arrested or forced to flee abroad before the start of the election campaign.

Yabloko and the Communist Party, which has criticized some aspects of government policy but has carefully avoided criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin, stated that many of their election observers were turned away from polling stations.

On Friday, the leader of Yabloko called on Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission, regarding numerous denials of entry for their observers and the pressure exerted on them.

“The scale of what is happening does not allow us to view this as a misunderstanding,” said Yabloko president Nikolai Ryabkov.

Russia did not invite observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to monitor the elections, and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the body of double standards due to its criticism of Russia.

The ministry stated that it had invited other international organizations as well as observers from OSCE member states.

The President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Pere Joan Pons, said that Russia’s decision constitutes a violation of its obligations as a member of the organization.

The Russian Central Election Commission announced that more than 380,000 observers were registered before the vote, including representatives of 11 parties. Of the registered observers, 97,040 are affiliated with the United Russia party, and the second largest group, 42,743, represents the Russian Communist Party.

It was also stated that an additional 1,126 international election observers and election experts were registered from 133 countries and 13 international organizations.

For the first time, these parliamentary elections include residents of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the start of the war, but does not yet fully control. Voting is also taking place in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.