Russians Abroad Didn’t Vote in Large Numbers But Often Voted against Party of Power

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 25 – Only 192,000 of the several million Russians living abroad who are eligible took part in the Duma elections, a reflection of their lack of interest in this ballot; but when they did vote – and their votes were concentrated in several electoral districts, they often voted against United Russia and thus the Kremlin and in at least one case decided the winner.

            That was in Tomsk Oblast where votes from France and Great Britain gave LDPR candidate LDPR Aleksey Didenko victory over United Russia aspirant Ilya Leontyev. Elsewhere, votes from Russians abroad narrowed the victory of United Russian candidates but did not defeat them (rosbalt.ru/russia/2021/09/25/1922973.html).

            Among Russian citizens voting in Germany, KPRF candidates outpolled United Russia ones. In the Czech Republic, the KPRF, Yabloko, and LDPR all outpolled United Russia in party list voting. In Estonia, the division was roughly the same as in the Russian Federation, Aleksandr Mikhaylov of Rosbalt reports.

            In Ukraine, only about 400 Russian citizens showed up at the embassy and consulates to vote. Their votes were distributed among three districts, Yamalo-Nenets and two in Sverdlovsk Oblast. In Armenia, only about five percent of Russian citizens registered with the embassy voted. In Central Asia, shares were larger, with “more than 3000” voting in Kyrgyzstan.

            This discussion of voting by Russians abroad does not include those newly-minted citizens in the Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” of Ukraine. There about 150,000 voted via the Internet and hundreds move voted in Russia’s Rostov Oblast after being taken there in specially arranged buses.