The outcome of Russia’s crudely manipulated parliamentary elections on September 17–19 was never in question: the Kremlin executed extra-rigid control over the campaigning and vote counting. But it was somewhat surprising to see how far the authorities would ultimately go to crush the supporters of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who encouraged influencing the results through so-called “smart voting”— casting a ballot for anyone who might stand a chance against the United Russia candidate. Many of his backers were forced into exile and labeled “foreign agents”. Government agencies even threatened to punish Google’s and Apple’s employees in Russia unless the companies removed Navalny’s voting app from their stores. Whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted that or not, the elections signified a big step in the ongoing transformation of his regime from populist authoritarianism to a dictatorship that treats any dissent as a security challenge.
