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DISINFO: The West is trying to influence the State Duma elections

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

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Manipulated elections/referendum Elections Destabilising Russia Anti-Russian West

DISINFO: The West is trying to influence the State Duma elections

SUMMARY

The West is now trying to raise doubts about the objectivity of the upcoming elections to the State Duma. They have already started to question the results of the elections. We've seen it all in previous election campaigns, but now it's probably going to become even more aggravated.

RESPONSE

This disinformation message advances recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about elections and "encircled Russia".

There are legitimate concerns about the freedom of 2021 parliamentary election in Russia. For example, for the first time since 1993 the OSCE will not send election observers to Russia, as the Russian authorities had put last-minute limits on the number of observers so low that it would not allow the OSCE to work in an effective and thorough manner (down from OSCE-planned 500 to Russia-allowed 60).

Matteo Mecacci, Director of OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, (ODIHR) commented on the matter as follows:

"We very much regret that our observation of the forthcoming elections in Russia will not be possible, but the ability to independently determine the number of observers necessary for us to observe effectively and credibly is essential to all international observation. The insistence of the Russian authorities on limiting the number of observers we could send without any clear pandemic-related restrictions has unfortunately made today’s step unavoidable".

Russian authorities cited the sanitary-epidemiological situation in the Russian Federation as the reason for the limitations - while COVID-19 restrictions are eased across Russia (no curfews etc). The OSCE said that no pandemic-related entry restrictions or rules about operating and moving within the country would seem to prevent the deployment of a full election observation mission in line with ODIHR’s initial assessment.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the OSCE/ODIHR has been able to successfully deploy several Election Observation Missions in a manner that respected the need to prevent the spread of the virus, protecting the observers’ and host countries’ public health.

According to Amnesty International, ahead of the elections the Russian authorities are both stepping up repression against their critics and using ever more direct ways of eliminating their political opponents. In previous elections, the main tools for eliminating unwanted candidates were refusals to register them or their disqualification for minor or imaginary infringements of the electoral process. This time, the authorities are applying a much more heavy-handed and sinister approach.

More and more media outlets in Russia are being arbitrarily declared 'foreign agents', essentially restricting freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Attempts to censor the content on the Internet are also increasing with ever more court cases against platform operators; examples here, here and here.

One of the main critics of the Kremlin, Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has survived an assassination attempt and is now imprisoned on politically-motivated charges. The Russia’s authorities have outlawed his anti-corruption movement.

Read similar cases in our database that claims that the West wants to influence elections in Russia and supports anti-State powers; or that the West trying to interfere in Russia’s legislative elections; or that for the West, Russian elections will always be "bad"; or that foreign election monitors did not notice a big difference between the elections in the EU and in Russia.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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