Boris Vishnevsky, a 65-year-old member of the liberal Yabloko party, poses a photo with a model of an official election poster printed on it with almost identical photos of him and the other two. Boris Vishnevskys stood side by side in St. Petersburg. (Photo: Olga Marceva/AFP)
- Boris Vishnevsky-The names of the three Russian legislators who are running for parliamentary elections look exactly the same.
- One Vishnevsky called it political fraud.
- He said that other Vishnevskys changed their names and appearances to confuse voters.
When Russian voters elect new legislators in St. Petersburg later this month, some confusion is forgivable-all three candidates have the same names and look alike.
The famous opposition politician Boris Vishnevsky, who is running for re-election to the regional assembly of Russia’s second city, will join two other politicians named “Boris Vishnevsky” (Boris Vishnevsky). People compete. beard.
“This is political fraud,” Vishnevsky, a 65-year-old senior member of the liberal Yabloko Party, told AFP.
“These people voted not to be elected or to show off their political plans, but to confuse voters. Not only did they change their names for this – they also changed their appearance.”
Vishnevsky was one of those who participated in dozens of elections, including the elections held in Russia from September 17th to 19th. The legislators entered the State Duma polls of the House of Commons, and almost all the outspoken Kremlins All critics of the palace were banned from running for the election.
He said he knew he might have to oppose spoilers — a common Russian political strategy in which candidates with similar names were used to weaken support for a popular politician.
But when Vishnevsky recently saw a model of an official election poster, he was stunned, with almost the same picture of him and two other Boris Vishnevskys side by side posted on it.
He said that he knew a man with the same name as him-Victor Bikov, a member of the increasingly unpopular ruling United Russia Party.
“Before he became’Boris Vishnevsky,’ he looked different-he didn’t have a beard,” he said.
Vishnevsky wrote for Russia’s highest independent newspaper, “New Newspaper”, reported that the second place, Alexei Shmelev, also changed his name before the vote.
Any candidate suspected of being spoiled could not be reached for comment. When contacted by Agence France-Presse, the local branch of United Russia did not immediately respond.
Vishnevsky posted a photo of an election poster on Twitter on Sunday and said he had filed a formal complaint on Monday.
In the complaint, he urged the Central Election Commission to investigate the matter and said that the official photos of his competitors had been processed by Photoshop.
Early official photos of Bykov, one of Vishnevsky’s avatars, show that he is a much younger man with few signs of receding hairline.
Vishnevsky wrote in the appeal:
I believe there is manipulation, the only goal of which is to distort the wishes of voters.
Earlier in the day, Ella Pamfilova, the chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission, called the situation a “disgrace” and “a mockery of voters”, but said it was powerless.
She said on the Kommersant FM radio that Russia’s electoral law is “extremely free” and all candidates named Boris Vishnevsky can vote.
According to data from the state-run polling agency VTsIOM, the United Russia Party voted less than 30% before the election.
On the eve of the vote, the Russian authorities cracked down on the opposition and independent media, detaining President Putin’s top domestic critic Alexei Navalny in February, and subsequently declared his organization illegal.
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