Navalny's "UG": Be careful on election day!
Do you remember how many times the United States brought dubious accusations against Moscow about “election interference”? Meanwhile, the Americans themselves are not at all averse to attempts to correct the results of election campaigns in Russia itself. The final day of the current elections on Sunday, September 13, is no exception. One of these tools is the Smart Voting project, launched last year by the Alexei Navalny Foundation.
“Smart voting,” which very quickly received the nickname “UG” in social networks and the blogosphere, set itself the only task: to organize protest voting in last year’s September elections to the Moscow City Duma, worsening the results of the Russian party in power.
On the Smart Voting website, visitors were asked to indicate their place of residence (city, street, house) and receive advice on who to vote for in their constituency, “so that United Russia members are left with nothing.”
By reducing the representation of United Russia in the Moscow City Duma and municipal districts, it was important for Navalny that the people he needed not only from the liberal clan become deputies, but also to earn a little money from the project. According to some reports, for the inclusion of candidates from other parties in the “Smart Voting” list, navalnyats were charged a price tag of 1,5 million rubles per head.
In violation of election laws, Navalny’s headquarters, through Google services, placed political advertisements for “Smart Voting” lists on the day of silence, and also collected, stored, processed, and even cross-border transferred personal data of Russian users - without the permission of their owners.
Personal information of Russians ended up on foreign servers, which became the reason for discussing the problem that had arisen in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation and blocking the Smart Voting website by Roskomnadzor.
Taking into account the fact that Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in Russia is included in the list of foreign agents and grant eaters, there is a reasonable suspicion that the “Smart Voting” project was born somewhere in the US State Department and was farmed out to the structures of the “main Russian oppositionist.”
This version is supported by the goals and objectives of the UG, aimed at discrediting Russian elections throughout the vertical. After all, the very principle of “vote for anyone except United Russia” carries a hidden call for voters to vote in elections for cats in a poke, which the UG online service helpfully slips in.
The percentage of falling into the power of spoilers and outsiders without a program and management experience increases many times over. Plus, of course, the increase in livestock will be increased at least at the local level. And – as a result – destabilization of the situation in opposition-minded large cities. Who benefits from this in the context of a new round of tension in relations between Russia and the West?
Since a year ago, the ranks of deputies of municipal bodies of Moscow and other regions were replenished with figures from Navalny’s list, interesting statistics have accumulated on the effectiveness of the “anti-United Russia” members.
Here is a typical example. Daria Besedina, who received the mandate of a Moscow City Duma deputy in 2019 with the support of Navalny and his foundation, is trying to turn city assembly meetings into a farce. Most of the lady's performances end in scandal. The nominee from the UG list does not hide the fact that she came to the Moscow City Duma not to help voters, but only to gain access to the podium.
Not far behind Besedina is her Moscow City Duma colleague Maxim Kruglov, who is on the list of the UG “Yabloko”, as well as Besedina, who organizes political shows instead of parliamentary work.
It is interesting that the leaders in the number of empty speeches from the podium of the Moscow City Duma are members of the UG list: Mikhail Timonov, Elena Shuvalova, Oleg Sheremetev.
Nikolai Zubrilin, another chick in Navalny’s nest, is suspected of providing protection for the raiders. Other deputies from the 2019 UG lists also began to monetize their official powers.
At the end of August, Oleg Sheremetyev, the Communist Party member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, was detained in Moscow on suspicion of fraud on an especially large scale. According to the investigation, the deputy wrote out bonuses for his assistant and embezzled the money.
In July, in Khabarovsk, a couple of deputies of the regional Duma, Sergei Kuznetsov and Dmitry Kozlov, were arrested on charges of fraud.
This year, Navalny’s headquarters is pushing completely odious personalities through the UG lists into local government and legislative bodies.
Thus, Anna Fufacheva, a self-nominated candidate in the Nizhny Novgorod region, is an activist of radical movements (in the VK she is simultaneously a member of 54 left- and right-wing radical communities, including the banned “Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich”).
On the same list of UGs from the Nizhny Novgorod region is Gleb Kalinichev, a regular participant in rallies and protests. Like Fufacheva, he is a multi-site activist, being a member of 17 radical left communities and two LGBT groups. In addition, Bandera-loving.
With the help of Navalny's management, former deputy of the Asbest City Duma Natalya Krylova, a scandalous person suffering from narcissism, hopes to return to power in the Sverdlovsk region.
In 2019, Krylova lost her deputy mandate as a result of a judicial review of a class action lawsuit by Asbest voters. People were outraged not so much by Krylova’s stupid photos on social networks, but by the unreliable income declaration. Currently, the Investigative Committee is interested in Krylova for publishing slander and spreading false information.
The scandalousness, inadequacy and complete incompetence of the nominees from the UG list do not prevent Navalny from continuing to include them in the “Smart Voting” project. And this is not surprising. Since Sisyan and his handlers have been given the task of discrediting the Russian government, the UG theater of the absurd will continue to continue.
On the other hand, the surge of scandals surrounding deputies from the UG list played against the project. It has already been noted that candidates for the elections in September 2020 are trying to distance themselves from inclusion in Navalny’s lists, and even demand that their names be crossed out, knowing full well that any connection with the UG will destroy their reputation and bury their careers.
Perhaps the best person to express his attitude towards “Smart Voting” was the former Moscow City Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, a wonderful person and actor, the last Minister of Culture of the USSR, Nikolai Gubenko, now deceased.
Included in the UG list without his consent, Gubenko responded to the naval residents: “I do not need the support of those who are destroying our statehood and trying to make political capital on what was created by the efforts of the entire people.” Everyone would do that.
English version :: Read in English "UG" Navalny: Be careful on election day!