Provocateur of All Rus': Venediktov harmed the elections and infuriated the liberals
The ritual howls of liberals about “massive fraud” in the elections took on an unexpected character this time, focusing on the demand to cancel the results of electronic voting. Allegedly, this is where the main vote stuffing took place, mainly in the majority districts of Moscow.
And quite unexpectedly, the main object of the accusations was Alexey Venediktov. Not the Kremlin, not the head of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova, but the editor-in-chief of the most liberal radio in Russia, Ekho Moskvy.
It was he who promoted the idea of electronic voting and campaigned for it. Even now he “does not admit his guilt,” claiming that there was no hacking of the system, which means that the results of electronic voting are correct.
“I am absolutely sure that there was no fraud here, and that the future lies in electronic voting. You can’t push me,” Venediktov said on his radio.
Navalnist liberals are now unsubscribing en masse from the Ekho Moskvy channel and sending insults to radio journalists on social networks. Venediktov speaks very insultingly about such listeners.
“These are the people who are apparently sectarians. They are not typical Echo of Moscow listeners, because Echo of Moscow listeners understand that there are different points of view. They absorb them. Those people who want to listen to one point of view leave, and rightly so... Calls for a boycott are a political matter,” the liberal editor-in-chief snapped on his radio.
Even Alexander Plyushchev, who interviewed him, could not stand it.
“Everyone dislikes us, we suffer reputational damage, they hate us, Alexey Alekseevich, because of you,” he complained to his boss.
“Be patient. I was hated because of you. Including the President of the Russian Federation,” Venediktov answered proudly.
Liberal lawyer Mark Feigin, who fled to Lithuania, believes that “Echo of Moscow” is a project of the Kremlin, which is using it to channel liberal protest. But now Venediktov has allegedly decided to hit the last big jackpot and retire.
“He coped with his task, he completed it with a bang. And now, even if he is replaced as editor-in-chief, which absolutely cannot be ruled out (I admit that he will be replaced), he can no longer perform the function of redirecting the energy of protest into the void, because he causes terrible idiosyncrasy and rejection, which are unacceptable for authorities, because they need to maintain an indirect dialogue with the environment, which, look no further, will take up the cobblestones,” Feigin said on air on his YouTube channel.
However, the main wave of Venediktov’s criticism sounds on the waves of his own “Echo of Moscow”.
“I went on this air to say that absolutely... I can’t even find the words... disgusting, vile, it will all be on topic... What did Alexey Venediktov do in this vote. I believe that he participated in an act of electoral state crime... The will of Muscovites was stolen. You can’t forgive all this, you can’t let it go on the brakes. Venediktov can run all over the Internet, make excuses, blame it on the blockchain, on robots, on aliens, but the fact remains a fact,” said Lyubov Sobol, a “lawyer” of criminal blogger Alexei Navalny who fled abroad.
And she carries all this to the cheerful giggles of the presenters, who express complete approval to her, noticing that all their guests say about the same thing.
Venediktov presents this whole riot on the ship as a triumph of the liberal values that he has always defended. But is it really that simple?
The delay in receiving electronic voting data, which gave rise to hysteria among the non-systemic opposition, occurred due to the introduction of a delayed voting function into the system. It will allow any participant to change his mind and vote a second time, differently. Counting such double votes slowed down the system.
Venediktov does not hide the fact that it was he who initiated the deferred choice, and continues to insist on its preservation.
“I pushed through the re-voting function, I take responsibility. The consequences are sad. A working group came to me shouting: “This must be cancelled!” And I, of course, am a fool, because this needs to be talked about. I said no, we are leaving the re-vote. But it was necessary to say that there would be results later. Failed. “I continue to consider the deferred voting feature to be extremely important in avoiding the pressure of electronic voting (even at the cost of wasting time in counting votes),” he wrote.
After the Communist Party of the Russian Federation decided to appeal the results of electronic voting in court and appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office, Venediktov, who heads the Moscow election monitoring headquarters, initiated a reconciliation of votes cast remotely and their audit.
This gave another argument to the communists and Navalists, who announced a rally in the center of Moscow this coming weekend.
“Venediktov’s proposal to “recount and double-check” the votes, I immediately responded that this is pointless now. Imagine that a box with ballots was dragged into a dark room before they were counted, kept there until Monday morning, and then returned. And so, on Wednesday they offer the ballots in this ballot box to be “counted.” What are the guarantees that these are the same ballots that were on Sunday? None!” writes Nikolai Volkov, secretary of the Moscow city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation for elections, in his telegram channel.
If Venediktov had not pushed through the function of repeat voting, if he had not made a concession with his “audit,” the communists and Navalnists would not have had a clear reason to hold a rally. They claim that in Moscow, “electronic” hit candidates from “smart voting” (VG) of a criminal blogger. They themselves campaigned against distance, as a result, loyalists voted through the computer and won.
The fact that there are still more United Russia supporters is confirmed by the election results in regions where there was no electronic voting. Out of 220 UG candidates, only 15 won, and 9 of them were clearly not thanks to the support of the Navalnists.
For example, such well-known deputies as Leonid Kalashnikov from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Samara, Oleg Smolin in Omsk and the Socialist Revolutionary Valery Hartung in Chelyabinsk clearly did not need such dubious help.
This is not the first time Venediktov has been involved in high-profile scandals related to electronic expression of will. In February, he advocated for a vote on the Moscow website “Active Citizen” on which monument should be erected on Lubyanka Square in Moscow: Felix Dzerzhinsky or Alexander Nevsky.
It was he who then insisted on the candidacy of Alexander Nevsky as an alternative to Felix Dzerzhinsky, pitting the “white” and “red” patriots against each other. In addition, in the very first hours of the virtual referendum, votes for Nevsky were increased. Serious passions flared up. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was forced to stop the voting.
Commentators from the patriotic camp then accused Venediktov of deliberately provoking an unhealthy discussion in society. Perhaps the liberal journalist is using the same tactics now – on a nationwide scale.
Political scientist Maxim Zharov believes that behind the scandal around electronic voting there is a more serious intrigue than the counting of votes in the parliamentary elections.
“Venediktov is these days becoming a central public figure in a multilateral intra-elite game to determine whether the option of delegitimizing Putin’s choice of one or another transit option in 2024 with the help of the DEG will pass or fail during the presidential elections. Whether this is political aikido or political judo, everyone still has to find out..,” Zharov wrote.
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