Navalny’s team is calling for voters to do the same this year, but many alternative candidates have been barred from running and the website set up to promote the campaign has been blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The Kremlin fights against Smart Voting like hell because they have measured the possible impact… and they are very aware that it could be huge,” Volkov said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Putin — whose popularity remains high with approval ratings of 60-65 percent — has looked to boost United Russia’s chances, ordering cash handouts of 10,000 rubles ($137\/116 euros) to pensioners and 15,000 rubles ($205\/174 euros) to police and soldiers ahead of the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His supporters say confidence in the president — still seen by many as a steady hand after the chaos of the 1990s — will help push United Russia over the top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“People tend to trust the authorities… What they want is economic development, to feel secure, and all of these things are what the Russian authorities today ensure,” United Russia’s Deputy Speaker in the Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, told AFP, predicting a majority win for his party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bur-mm\/jbr\/har<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twenty apartments! A hundred cars! Tens of thousands in gift certificates! These are just some of the prizes up for grabs for Russians later this week. All they have to do is vote. After a year that saw a historic crackdown on the opposition and with President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party floundering in the polls, authorities are doing what they can to drum up interest in parliamentary elections taking place over three days from Friday to Sunday. So signs around Moscow are touting “a million prizes” for voters who cast electronic ballots in the election, which looks set to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[544,545],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n