Updated 15.25 | Published 15.18
unsaveSave
expand-left
full screenRussian opposition leader Alexei Navalny wants Russians to protest President Putin by voting at the same time. Archive image. Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP/TT
Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny is calling on Russians to protest President Vladimir Putin in next month’s presidential election by voting at a specific time.
In a statement on social media, Navalny claimed that by forming long lines at noon on March 17 to vote against Putin, residents would carry out “a powerful demonstration of the mood in the country.” He says it could be “a proper, all-Russian protest action taking place not just in every city, but in every district of every city.”
Navalny’s ally Ivan Zhdanov says the proposal initially seemed weak.
“But then we sat down and calculated it. There are 2,058 polling stations in Moscow, even if half a million people show up at the same time, there will be 250 like-minded people at each polling station, which is already a lot of people at each polling station,” writes Zhdanov on X.