{"id":346055,"date":"2024-03-18T10:40:13","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T09:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/03\/18\/putin-elezioni-russia-falsate-navalny\/"},"modified":"2024-03-21T20:15:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:15:28","slug":"putin-won-russias-most-flawed-election-ever-but-thousands-protest-in-navalnys-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/03\/18\/putin-won-russias-most-flawed-election-ever-but-thousands-protest-in-navalnys-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin won Russia’s most flawed election ever. Thousands of people protest in Navalny’s name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Russia’s autocrat, Vladimir Putin<\/strong>, has won the presidential election, again, in the most predictable and obvious vote ever<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0the Russian Federation’s history. Having physically eliminated or prevented his most dangerous political competitors from running, Putin won 87.8 percent of the vote at the polls yesterday (March 17)<\/strong> – a record in post-Soviet Russia – putting the political seal on a fifth presidential term and six more years in power.<\/p>\n

\"Vladimir<\/a>
Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin (credits: Natalia Kolesnikova \/ Afp)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the vacuum of the electoral contest (the communist Nikolai Kharitonov <\/strong>came second with 4.3 percent) and in the absence of international missions to observe the conduct of the vote, Putin claimed the victory as unanimous support from the people for the war of invasion of Ukraine, which began just over two years ago. Before\u00a0the vote, European Union institutions had opted not to comment on the presidential election as not free and distorted from the start, including the assassination<\/a> of opposition leader Alexei Navalny<\/strong> in an Arctic prison on Feb. 16. Only the president of the European Council, Charles Michel<\/strong>, had provocatively<\/a> congratulated the Russian autocrat\u00a0before the polls opened on Friday (March 15): “No opposition, no freedom, no choice.”<\/p>\n

\n

“The presidential elections held by Russia on 15-17 March took place in a highly restricted environment exacerbated also by Russia\u2019s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine,” the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell<\/strong>, commented this morning in a press release<\/a> on behalf of the European Union: “Russian authorities have continued to increase the systematic internal repression <\/strong>by cracking down on opposition politicians, civil society organisations, independent media and other critical voices with the use of repressive legislation and politically motivated prison sentences.” Brussels placed\u00a0special emphasis\u00a0on the “illegal holding of so-called \u201celections\u201d in the territories of Ukraine that Russia has temporarily occupied<\/strong>,” namely in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, and parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and the Kherson regions: “The European Union reiterates that it does not and will never recognise either the holding of these so-called \u201celections\u201d in the territories of Ukraine or their results. They are null and void and cannot produce any legal effect whatsoever,<\/strong>” Borrell\u00a0forcefully made clear.<\/p>\n

\"Yulia<\/a><\/figure>\n

Yulia Navalnaya in\u00a0Berlin, March 17,\u00a02024 (credits: Tobias Schwarz \/ Afp)<\/p>\n

Even though\u00a0almost impossible<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0organize any form of opposition in the country, thousands of people took part in the\u00a0peaceful protest that Navalny himself urged before he died, the ‘Noon against Putin’<\/strong>, in front of polling stations in the country and at Russian embassies around the world, cancelling their ballots\u00a0(turnout was reportedly 74.2 percent). The opposition leader’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya<\/strong>, also took part in the protest outside\u00a0the Russian Embassy in Berlin and made it known that she had written ‘Navalny’ on her ballot. Navalnaya herself had called Putin “a bloody mafioso, the head of a criminal organization<\/strong>” in her\u00a0speech<\/a> three weeks ago at the Plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Russian autocrat wins a fifth term and six more years in power after physically eliminating or preventing the most dangerous political competitors from running. ‘Noon against Putin protests, urged by opposition leader Alexei Navalny before his death, were staged outside polling stations in the Country and embassies around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5647,"featured_media":346011,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26458,26946,25803,26875,26989,27307],"class_list":["post-346055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-alexei-navalny-en","tag-russia-in-2","tag-elezioni-russia-2024-en","tag-julia-navalnaya-en","tag-yulia-navalnaya-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5647"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346055"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347360,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346055\/revisions\/347360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}