Russians cast their ballots across the country’s 11 time zones yesterday, the start of a three-day election that is almost certain to hand President Vladimir Putin six more years at the helm of the world’s biggest nuclear power.
Amid the Ukraine war, the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War II, the 71-year-old Kremlin chief dominates Russia’s political landscape and none of the other three candidates on the ballot paper presents any credible challenge.
The Kremlin says Putin, in power as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, will win as he commands broad support for rescuing Russia from post-Soviet chaos and standing up to what it says is an arrogant, hostile West.
Photo: AP
From Chukotka on the Pacific 6,300km away from Moscow to the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea bordering Poland, some of Russia’s more than 190 ethnic groups turned out to vote in national costume.
In Yakutsk, an eastern Siberian city where the temperature was minus-18oC, the descendant of a Yukaghir shaman asked spirits to bring good luck to the winner of the election during a ceremony at one polling station.
In other Russian cities, one woman dressed up as Barbie and another came to a polling station dressed in a tiger outfit.
Photo: AFP
However, the shadow of the Ukraine war hangs over the election: Russia has more than 1 million men in arms and several hundred thousand fighting a grinding artillery and drone war along the 1,000km front line in Ukraine.
More than 114 million Russians are eligible to vote, including in what Moscow calls its “new territories” — four regions of Ukraine that its forces only partly control, but which it has claimed as part of Russia. Ukraine says the staging of elections there is illegal and void.
Putin is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova, were barred from running by the electoral commission, which cited irregularities in their paperwork.
The widow of leading opposition politician Alexei Navalny and supporters have called on people across Russia to protest by turning out to vote all at the same time at noon tomorrow in each of the country’s 11 time zones.
They have presented the “Noon Against Putin” action as a way for people to express opposition without the risk of arrest, as they will be queuing up to vote legally. The Kremlin has warned people against taking part in unauthorized gatherings.
Under constitutional changes that voters approved in 2020, Putin is eligible to run for yet another term in 2030, potentially extending his rule to 2036.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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