‘We stirred up the snake’s nest nicely’ Team Navalny’s round up of Smart Vote’s achievements in the 2021 elections, in brief

Alexey Navalny’s team summed the impact of their “Smart Vote” initiative on the 2021 State Duma elections in a video released on Thursday, September 23. Thanking everyone who participated in the strategic voting initiative, Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov asserted that Smart Vote’s main achievement was to “stir up” the authorities’ attempts to rig the election. He also called for the annulment of Moscow’s electronic voting results and a complete recount of the ballots cast in St. Petersburg. Finally, Volkov said that Team Navalny supports any peaceful protests in response to the election, urging the losing parties and candidates to take the lead and “fight.”

Our main political result was that the elections to the State Duma were reduced to a showdown between David and Goliath — a confrontation between Putin and “Smart Vote.” We stirred up the snake’s nest nicely. Many candidates from United Russia lost to our candidates in local elections, and we even managed to get several strong politicians elected to the State Duma. The votes were counted correctly in many regions, but the greater part of Russia was turned into an electoral sultanate. United Russia, with it’s 30 percent rating, stupidly falsified 50 percent of the votes. Our candidates were poised to win in most of the electoral districts in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but then their victory was stolen. Do the official results mean that we lost? Of course not. The newly elected State Duma has no legitimacy. The results of fraudulent electronic voting in Moscow must be annulled. In St. Petersburg, there needs to be a complete recount. We support any peaceful protest actions that will help achieve these demands. After the security forces violently dispersed protest rallies [earlier this year], Putin decided that he doesn’t need to be afraid of the street. Is he right? This is up to the candidates and parties whose victory was stolen. They should fight. Smart Vote showed itself to be excellent. Putin doesn’t have that many courageous and smart supporters, only deceitful tricks. Stick around, Russia will be happy! 

The text above is an approximate summary of Leonid Volkov’s round up of the “Smart Vote” results, not a verbatim transcript. You can watch the full video in Russian here.