House raids, bugging devices, threats, violence and demeaning posters are just a few things Vladimir Putin´s critics have faced while trying to run for city parliament in the Russian capital.
Two years after President Putin was elected for a historic third term – facing mass protests in Moscow where less than half of the population voted for him – the Kremlin ruler is riding high in the polls while the opposition is all but stamped out.
And as the authorities seek to tighten their grip on society after seizing the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March, even the Moscow city duma – a decorative body stripped of almost all decision-making power – seems to be considered a potential threat.
The 35-seat body that discusses matters in Moscow — which has a population of over 11 million and annual budget of about $50 billion — became the latest target of Kremlin foes scrambling around for at least a modicum of political representation.
But out of two dozen independent candidates who sought to run for office in the September election for the city duma, only two were able to file documents in time for Friday´s deadline.
An independent candidate Olga Romanova received threats and was put on posters calling her a “fascist” who receives money from Ukraine´s ultra-nationalist group Right Sector — an organisation banned and vilified in Russia amid the crisis in Ukraine.
