Polls have opened in Russia in a parliamentary vote held under tight Kremlin control with much of the opposition sidelined. The ruling United Russia party, backed by President Vladimir Putin, is widely expected to retain its dominance. The first Russians to cast their ballots in the voting scheduled to run from Friday till Sunday were in the Pacific region of Kamchatka, nine time zones ahead of Moscow. The selection of 450 lawmakers for the national parliament, the State Duma, takes place against a backdrop of increasing economic hardship after four and half years of conflict. Ukraine has brought the realities of war home to everyday Russians in recent months by launching strikes on commercial and energy targets deep inside Russia, causing widespread fuel shortages and increased public anxiety. ‘We must win!’ The United Russia party has campaigned on delivering prosperity, greatness and national security and referenced the war directly in the opening paragraph of its manifesto: “To achieve this, we must win!” Putin himself couched the vote as a show of support for the war in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday. "Your choice and your will will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our soldiers, that we are a united people bound together by shared values, historical memory, and love for our homeland, and that no one will succeed in dividing or intimidating us, or in undermining our statehood and our socio-political system," Putin said. Putin told Russians the vote would serve as a collective response to those seeking to weaken Russia, hinder its development, and deprive it of its sovereignty and right to determine its own future. The only major party campaigning against the war was barred from running by a court ruling just weeks before the polls opened. Prosecutors charged the Yabloko (Apple) party of copyright infringements and other crimes, leading the Supreme Court to disqualify it on August 10. Election rigging Putin has taken other steps to cement his hold on power since becoming president in 1999. Elections have been moved from December to September, when many people are away in the countryside during better weather. This change, enacted in 2016, saw voter turnout plummet to 47.8% from 60.2% five years earlier. Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Putin-critic Alexei Navalny and currently the de facto figurehead of Russia's opposition, has posted evidence of election rigging on social media. She posted a letter from a pre-school teacher who said all employees had been told by their supervisor to take photos of their completed ballot papers. Another woman said she worked for a local mayor’s office where all staff had to register on the United Russia website and choose a candidate to vote for. Observers say elections in Russia are held primarily for show. “Ultimately, these elections are nothing more than a ritual," political analyst Fyodor Krasheninnikov told the UK's The i Paper. "The Kremlin will go through the motions and confirm United Russia’s majority.” Many Russians interviewed by the newspaper echoed the view that the election is a sham, and some said they would deface their ballots in protest. “I have lived under Stalin, another despot, but today we live in uniquely amoral times,” one 80-year-old man from Yekaterinburg to The i Paper. “Concepts like conscience or ethics have become obsolete. It feels like I live behind enemy lines. "I despise this circus," he said. "We will probably spoil the ballot. We still have values and we do care, even if the government does not give a damn about us.”
