Elections report


Half an hour ago the Russian parlamentary elections were over, the count of the votes has begun, and the first photos have been posted on the Internet. The first reports verify the several months old prognosis: Putin and Medvedev’s “United Russia” will take about 50-60% of the votes, which will be increased by the 7-10% of their ally “Fair Russia”. The Communists will get between 10 and 20%, while it is dubious whether the other four parties will hit the 7% threshold at all. However, the real stake of the elections is not this, but what the Economist wrote some months ago: “In the absence of genuine politics the main job of the Kremlin’s spin-doctors is to imitate it in order to stop the crowd from getting so bored that they ignore elections altogether.” Even so a large number of boycott demonstrations were held over the weekend, but according to the photos of the Ridus portal the event was still fun.

A voter of Upper Biryus village enters the polling station. Although Ridus does not mention it, a piquancy of the photo is that the sample ballot put up to the left does not include the social-liberal Yabloko party’s logo and name, who, of course, have no chance with their expected 3%, but can lodge a protest for this.

The “Russian Soul” folk choir of Upper Biryus arrives at the polling station.

A voter of Klyukino village studies the ballot paper in the company of her goats and of the members of the electoral committee carrying the moving ballot box

The lovers of winter swimming in Barnaul (Altai) jumped over to vote directly from the training

A Klyukino voter at the moving ballot box

Voting at the moving ballot box in Gryazi village

Voting in Oster village next to Moscow

The moving ballot box arrives to a home in Oster

The proportion of pensioners was very large in this year’s elections. Voting in Gryazi

Election posters are cleaned up already on the day of the elections in the capital of Yakutia

Members of the Black Sea fleet vote collectively, under the supervision of their superiors in the Crimean Sevastopol

An illustration of the confidentiality of the elections from Evenki Land

The opinion of the people (Home-made inscription on the dustbin: “For the votes”)

…And the continuation…

6 comentarios:

Ivan dijo...

Wonderful photos, but it would be more correct to say "ballot box" rather than "urn."

Studiolum dijo...

Thanks a lot. Corrected.

MOCKBA dijo...

But then the old pun of the last image kind of disappears (since in Russian both the ballot box and the garbage can could be called the same, "an urn")

It's interesting how the media can in the same breath call the election a meaningless farce (as the garbage can photo implies too) and a meaningful repudiation :)

BTW I think that a dustbin, as opposed to rubbish-bin, corresponds to Russian "sovok".

Alexander Anichkin dijo...

no-no - sovok (household) is a dustpan, sovok (gardening) - trowel, sovok (sovkovaya lopata, building) - shovel. Sovok, the derogatory demonym, is a contraction of Soviet.

In the photo from Oster note the white plastic washstand by the gate. And the freshly painted fence and drain pipe while the walls of the house remain unplastered and unpainted.

It looks like United Russia may go below 50 percent and communists gain over 20.

Megkoronáz, AJP dijo...

One day those goats will be allowed to vote - and rightly so. They would just love it. They'd certainly eat some ballots, but they wouldn't be partisan about it.

Megkoronáz, AJP dijo...

No, I think it's possible. I bribe them all the time with promises of food to come if they'll only follow me. I don't know whether they'd do it for political reasons: sometimes they give the impression that they might be anarchists, but at heart they like to do things only as a group. They'd probably just Vote Goat.