Jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny calls on all Russians voting against Putin to go to polls simultaneously

Jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny has endorsed the “Noon Against Putin” initiative, a strategy proposed by St. Petersburg opposition politician Maxim Reznik that calls for everyone who plans to vote against the incumbent president in the country’s upcoming election to go to the polls simultaneously at 12:00 p.m. on March 17.

“The most important thing is that this will be a truly nationwide protest campaign; it will take place not just in every town but in every district of every town,” Navalny wrote on social media. Because the idea is “totally legal and safe,” he said, it will be “completely impossible” for the authorities to obstruct.

What can they do? Close the polling booths at 12:00? Organize a “10:00 a.m. for Putin” counterprotest? Write down the names of everyone who showed up at noon and put them on a list of disloyal citizens? [...] This will be a nationwide protest campaign against Putin that will happen right next to all of your homes. It’s accessible to everyone everywhere. Millions of people can take part. And tens of millions will witness it.

Ivan Zhdanov, the director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said the idea initially struck the Navalny team as “weak.”

“But then we sat down and counted. There are 2,058 polling stations in Moscow. Even if half a million people come at the same time, that’s 250 like-minded people at each stations; that’s already a lot of people at each one,” he said.