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      In Russia Election Results, Online Votes Sweep Putin Opponents Aside

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      The official tally gave a strong parliamentary majority to President Vladimir V. Putin’s United Russia party. Opposition leaders cried foul, pointing to earlier signs of gains.MOSCOW — Russia’s ruling party retained a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Parliament and claimed a sweeping victory in opposition-minded Moscow — a stark display of Kremlin power as the authorities on Monday announced the results of a nationwide parliamentary election that opposition leaders denounced as blatantly falsified.Partial results released after the polls closed on Sunday evening had shown significant gains by opposition parties and potential victories by several candidates supported by the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny. But by the time Russia’s Central Election Commission revealed a nearly full count on Monday, those gains were largely gone — prompting anger from Kremlin critics, claims of large-scale fraud and scattered calls for protests.Russian elections are not free and fair, and the country’s best known opposition figures were barred from the ballot, jailed or exiled in the months before the three-day-long vote that ended on Sunday. But Mr. Navalny’s allies had hoped to use a coordinated protest vote in the election to deliver a rebuke to President Vladimir V. Putin.The focal point of the opposition’s anger on Monday was the Russian capital, a stronghold of anti-Kremlin sentiment where the government had urged voters to cast their ballots online. Challengers to the ruling party, United Russia, led in several electoral districts before the results of online voting were tabulated, with a delay, on Monday. Soon after, the election commission declared the pro-Kremlin candidate the victor in each of those districts.As a result, the ruling United Russia party swept to a dominant performance and kept its two-thirds “supermajority” in the lower house of Parliament, the Duma — all despite recording approval ratings below 30 percent in recent polls published by state-run research groups. The party received 50 percent of the vote with 52 percent turnout — and won 198 of the 225 seats apportioned in direct, single-district elections.“We’ve never had a voting process that we didn’t know anything about,” Roman Udot, a co-head of Golos, an independent election monitoring group, said of Moscow’s online voting system. “There’s some kind of big, big skeleton in the closet here.”An official in the Moscow city government explained the delay in the tabulation of online votes by pointing to a “decoding” process that took “considerably longer than we had expected,” the Interfax news agency reported.Mr. Navalny said in a social media message from prison that the delay in releasing online voting results allowed “the deft little hands” of United Russia officials to “fake the results to the exact opposite.” The Communist Party, which came in second nationwide and in several of the disputed district-level races in the capital, said it would not recognize the online voting results in Moscow.Graffiti depicting the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny in St. Petersburg in April. Anton Vaganov/ReutersBut it was not clear what, if anything, critics of the outcome could do about the situation. The judiciary is under the thumb of the Kremlin, while prominent opposition figures are exiled or behind bars. Street protests are increasingly punished by jail terms.In all, the outcome further demonstrated Mr. Putin’s strengthening lock on political life — and served, perhaps, as a dress rehearsal for the presidential election of 2024, in which Mr. Putin could seek a fifth term.“For the president, the main thing was and remains the competitiveness, openness and honesty of the elections,” Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters on Monday. “We, of course, assess the electoral process very, very positively.”Kremlin critics had been warning for weeks that online voting could open up new avenues for fraud, since the tabulation process was even less transparent than the counting of paper ballots.On Monday, the Communists called for protests, but the Moscow authorities quickly denied them a permit because of pandemic-related restrictions, according to state news agencies. Leonid Volkov, a top aide to Mr. Navalny who has been trying to coordinate opposition votes from exile, stopped short of urging people out into the streets but said that he and his colleagues would support “any peaceful protest actions” that could help overturn the results.Television images on Monday showed police trucks massing at central Moscow’s Pushkin Square, but it was not clear whether any protests would materialize.“The Kremlin took this step because it was certain it could get away with it,” Mr. Volkov said in a post on the messaging app Telegram. “Putin decided that he need not be afraid of the street. Whether or not he’s right — we’ll find out.”Oleg Matsnev More

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      Canada’s Election: What to Know

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      Will Justin Trudeau remain the prime minister? A month ago, it might have looked like a sure thing.Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada called a snap election last month — two years ahead of schedule — he has struggled to explain why he thinks it’s necessary.The last general election, in 2019, left his Liberal Party in a weakened position, able to govern only with the support of opposition lawmakers in Parliament. This time, Mr. Trudeau says, he needs a strong mandate to bring the pandemic under control and lead Canada to economic recovery.But his rivals have called the election a power grab — and an unnecessary one, since Mr. Trudeau has largely been able to enact his legislative agenda.They also said it was reckless to hold an election at a time when coronavirus cases are rising and restrictions are being reimposed.Still, Mr. Trudeau is hoping that the 36-day campaign — the shortest election period allowed by law — pays off with the majority that eluded his party last time. The Liberals were heading into Election Day in a statistical tie with their main opponent, the Conservative Party, led by Erin O’Toole. Results may not be clear until Monday evening or early Tuesday morning; the last polls close in British Columbia at 7 p.m. Pacific time, or 10 p.m. Eastern.Why an election now?During the short campaign, Mr. Trudeau has argued that only a majority Liberal government can beat the coronavirus and set a path to recovery. But the other parties have supported his pandemic response all along, including his plans for vaccine procurement and delivery, and his popular economic aid programs.The public approved, too. The Liberals’ standing rose in the polls, and Mr. Trudeau’s personal approval ratings soared. Most political analysts say he called the election to take advantage of that popularity, rather than risk an election two years from now, when memories may have faded.A Covid-19 vaccination site at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto this summer.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press, via Associated PressIf that was the idea, it seems to have backfired. Since he called the election, Mr. Trudeau’s poll numbers, and those of his party, have fallen.On the campaign trail, his rivals have attacked his character (as they have throughout his political career), pointing to a series of ethical missteps and accusing him of putting his interests above the nation’s.Nonetheless, Mr. Trudeau — a Canadian celebrity since his birth in 1971, when his father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was prime minister — has drawn large crowds to his rallies, with people eager to pose for selfies with him.How is Covid-19 affecting the election?Canada has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates, but in some areas, the Delta variant has driven case numbers up and hospitals are close to capacity. The western province of Alberta, which had lifted its restrictions, reimposed most of them during the campaign. Public health leaders are now warning of a fourth wave.Mr. Trudeau supports vaccine mandates for travel and for federal workers, as well as vaccine passports. Mr. O’Toole opposes them.What other issues have surfaced?Climate change: Since Mr. Trudeau first took office in 2015, he has made climate change a top priority, introducing, among other measures, a national carbon tax.The Conservatives, who opposed such taxes for years, came to this campaign with their first carbon tax plan. Many analysts have called it inadequate, but its existence made it impossible for Mr. Trudeau to paint the party as entirely unwilling to take action on global warming.The Petro-Canada refinery and distribution center in Edmonton, Alberta.Dan Riedlhuber/ReutersGun control: At the start of the campaign, Mr. O’Toole promised to repeal a ban on 1,500 different models of military-style assault rifles. But he seemed to abandon that plan quickly; polling in Canada consistently shows strong support for tight gun restrictions.The economy: Canada has recovered nearly all the jobs lost by the pandemic. Mr. Trudeau’s pandemic spending on vaccines and economic support, though, has left large debts and deficits. After criticizing those deficits, Mr. O’Toole unveiled similar spending plans. He also promised to balance the budget within 10 years, a time frame that most economists say is too distant to be credible.The election itself: In some ways, Mr. Trudeau’s decision to hold an election during a pandemic has crowded out other questions facing the country. During the candidates’ recent French-language debate, the subject came up 13 times.How about foreign policy?Even before this campaign, the Conservatives had consistently pounded Mr. Trudeau over China, arguing that he had been ineffective in dealing with Beijing.China’s incarceration of two Canadian businessmen — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — has been a source of tension for almost three years. It has been seen as retaliation for Canada’s detention, at the United States’ request, of Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at the Chinese tech giant Huawei.After Mr. O’Toole said in a debate that Mr. Trudeau was not tough enough with China, the prime minister retorted, “If you want to get the Michaels home, you do not simply lob tomatoes across the Pacific.”Afghanistan has also been an issue. Mr. Trudeau called the snap election the same weekend that Kabul fell to the Taliban. His opponents said the timing interfered with Canada’s mission to rescue Afghan refugees and criticized the government for not acting earlier to help them.Mr. Trudeau’s relationship with former President Donald J. Trump was famously antagonistic. Mr. Trump called him “very dishonest and weak,” and imposed trade sanctions on Canada, arguing that its steel and aluminum exports were a threat to American national security. Relations between Canada and the United States have calmed since President Biden came to office, and the issue was rarely raised during the campaign.Mr. O’Toole has criticized the prime minister for Canada’s absence from a new security alliance between Canada, Britain and the United States that was part of a deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia. Mr. Trudeau has said that Canada is not in the market for nuclear submarines, and that the arrangement does not detract from existing alliances.Have Indigenous issues been at play?Along the highway in Kamloops, British Columbia, this summer, a line of children’s clothing represented children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.Amber Bracken for The New York TimesIn the months leading up to the election, Canadians were shocked by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential schools for Indigenous children. The discoveries renewed a national discussion about reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous communities, which has been another of Mr. Trudeau’s top priorities.Jagmeet Singh of the left-of-center New Democratic Party has accused Mr. Trudeau’s government of dealing too slowly with Indigenous concerns, as with a missed target to bring clean drinking water to all reserve communities within five years.How soon could we know the results?All 338 of Canada’s electoral districts, each represented by a member of the House of Commons, will hold an election today. The party that wins the most seats gets to form the government and make its leader the prime minister.Canadians have 12 hours to vote. The last polls close in British Columbia at 7 p.m. Pacific time, or 10 p.m. Eastern. But Canadian elections are generally decided in Ontario and Quebec, the most populous provinces.Canada still votes with paper ballots, and they all must be counted by hand before the results become clear well into Monday evening or early Tuesday morning. More

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      Sanae Takaich Hopes to Be Japan’s First Female Leader

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      If Sanae Takaichi wins, it would be a milestone for the country. But some feminists hope it doesn’t happen.TOKYO — Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, often talked about creating a society in which women could “shine.”Now, a year after he resigned because of ill health, Mr. Abe is backing a woman, Sanae Takaichi, to lead the governing Liberal Democratic Party. If party members elect her this month, she will almost certainly become Japan’s first female prime minister.Ms. Takaichi, 60, is considered a long shot. If she beats the odds, it will be a significant milestone for Japan, where women make up less than 15 percent of Parliament and only two of the current cabinet’s 21 ministers are female.But Ms. Takaichi, a hard-line conservative, is a divisive figure among Japanese who want politicians to do more to empower women. She rarely talks about gender equality, and she supports some policies, such as a law requiring married couples to share a surname, that feminists say diminish women’s rights.“For her to be up there on a pedestal as a shining example of a different, improved, changed society for Japanese women would be the worst possible thing that could happen,” said Noriko Hama, an economics professor at Doshisha University Business School in Kyoto.The Liberal Democrats will hold their leadership vote on Sept. 29. Yoshihide Suga, the unpopular current prime minister and party leader, said this month that he would step aside.Whoever party members choose is highly likely to be named the new prime minister by Parliament. He or she will then lead the party into a general election that must be held by the end of November. The Liberal Democrats, who have governed Japan for almost all of the postwar period, are heavily favored to win that election.Ms. Takaichi, who was first elected to Parliament in 1993 from Nara Prefecture in western Japan, has been a staunch ally of Mr. Abe’s since 2006, when he began his first, brief stint as prime minister, and through his return to power in 2012. She served repeatedly in his cabinet, where her portfolios included — ironically, in some feminists’ view — gender equality.Ms. Takaichi, left, with then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, center, and the rest of his first cabinet in 2006. Kazuhiro Nogi/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesUnlike Mr. Abe, Ms. Takaichi has said little about the gender gap, though she has called for tax deductions for child care and doing more to support women’s health.But on many other far-right policies, she echoes Mr. Abe. She supports amending the pacifist Constitution, a contentious position in a country wary of military aggression. In a campaign speech Friday, she vowed to “protect the national sovereignty and honor at all costs.” (She did not comment for this article.)Like Mr. Abe and other conservatives, Ms. Takaichi argues that Japanese atrocities during World War II have been overstated and objects to further official apologies for them. She regularly visits Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial in Tokyo honoring Japan’s war dead — including Class A war criminals from the World War II era — that is a flash point for historical sensitivities in China and South Korea.On social issues, Ms. Takaichi opposes same-sex marriage and legal changes that would allow women to reign as emperor. And she opposes changing the century-old law requiring married couples to share a surname for legal purposes, an issue often seen as a litmus test among conservative power brokers.She has said that revising the law could lead to divorce or extramarital affairs. Ms. Takaichi, who is divorced, used her birth surname professionally during her marriage.Political analysts say Mr. Abe, who still wields considerable influence in the party, has calculated that Ms. Takaichi’s gender will overshadow her lack of policies supporting women. “Abe is just pretending to respect and proactively promote women,” said Naoto Nonaka, a professor of politics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo.Ms. Takaichi visiting the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors Japan’s war dead, in 2014. Yoshikazu Tsuno/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Abe is widely seen as having fallen short on his promises to advance women in society. In the World Economic Forum’s annual analysis of gender gaps, Japan, which has the world’s third-largest economy, ranks 120th out of 156 countries. Women still struggle to gain traction in Japanese politics, particularly at the national level. Yuriko Koike, the governor of Tokyo, founded a party in 2017 in an attempt to disrupt a national election that year, but Mr. Abe led the Liberal Democrats to victory, while Ms. Koike’s party drew only lukewarm support.Another woman in the Liberal Democrats’ leadership race, Seiko Noda, 61, has explicitly promoted gender equality, as well as rights for older people and those with disabilities. But she barely secured enough signatures from party lawmakers to qualify as a candidate.The Liberal Democrats’ far-right wing has held sway for a decade, and analysts said women in particular had to tack right to rise in the party. “In order to compensate for this disadvantage of being a woman, you have to show over-loyalty to the conservatives,” said Mari Miura, a professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “And that means you have to be hawkish and anti-feminist.”Gender aside, Ms. Takaichi is an unusual leadership candidate because she does not come from a prominent political family. The top contenders, Taro Kono, 58, and Fumio Kishida, 64, are both sons and grandsons of members of Parliament. Mr. Abe’s grandfather was also a prime minister.Ms. Takaichi’s mother was a police officer in Nara, and her father worked for a car company affiliated with Toyota. In a memoir, Ms. Takaichi wrote that she had been admitted to two prominent private universities, Waseda and Keio, but that her parents wanted to save the tuition money for her younger brother.Instead, she attended Kobe University, a state school, where she played drums in a band and drove a motorcycle. After graduation, she spent a year in the United States, interning with then-Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder of Colorado, a Democrat.From left, Taro Kono, Fumio Kishida, Ms. Takaichi and Seiko Noda, all candidates to lead the Liberal Democratic Party, at a debate in Tokyo on Saturday.Pool photo by Eugene Hoshiko“I was amazed that she was so interested in how the U.S. government worked,” Ms. Schroeder wrote in an email. “A lot of Americans aren’t interested in that! She was very dedicated and dug into any project she was given.”Ms. Takaichi, who has often cited Margaret Thatcher as a role model, decided her best path to power was to align with Mr. Abe. “Her candidacy became viable in a way that it wouldn’t have been without” him, said Tobias Harris, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington and a specialist in Japanese politics.She has never strayed far from her mentor’s agenda. Ms. Takaichi has even unveiled an economic platform that she calls “Sanaenomics,” an obvious reference to Mr. Abe’s so-called Abenomics. It includes monetary easing and strong fiscal investment, two principles that he promoted.Ms. Takaichi raised eyebrows in 2014 when she posed for photos with Kazunari Yamada, a Holocaust denier who leads the fringe National Socialist Japanese Workers party. Years earlier, she had endorsed a book by a Liberal Democrat that praised Hitler’s campaign tactics.Taku Yamamoto, Ms. Takaichi’s ex-husband and a fellow lawmaker in the party, said being photographed with someone was not a sign of an alliance. “We politicians accept anyone who wants to take a picture with us,” he said, adding, “I have had my photo taken with members of the Communist Party.”References to Nazi Germany are not as politically explosive in Japan and other Asian countries as they can be in the West. “The issue seems very distant in Japan regarding the Holocaust,” said Kiyoka Tokumasu, 20, a student studying education and international affairs at International Christian University in Tokyo.Ms. Tokumasu said she knew little about Ms. Takaichi’s positions but would welcome a female prime minister.“Having a high-profile woman represent a country where the politicians are predominantly male will create a ripple effect,” Ms. Tokumasu said. “Hopefully, while she’s in her role, we can influence her to support more laws and ideologies that create a more gender-equal world.”Hisako Ueno contributed reporting. 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      Beto O’Rourke Draws Closer to Entering Texas Governor’s Race

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      Mr. O’Rourke has been calling Democratic leaders in Texas to tell them he is seriously considering challenging Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022. HOUSTON — Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman who became a darling of Democrats after nearly defeating Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, is inching closer to announcing a run for governor of Texas, according to three people who have spoken with him.In recent weeks, Mr. O’Rourke has been making calls to Democratic leaders across Texas to inform them that he is seriously considering taking on Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is up for re-election next year. And he has begun talking to supporters about having them join his campaign staff. A decision could be made in the coming weeks, the three people said, possibly as soon as October. Democrats in Texas have been urging Mr. O’Rourke to get into the race for governor almost from the moment he dropped out of the 2020 race for president, a quixotic effort that stumbled early and failed to gain traction amid a crowded primary field. But despite his troubles on the national stage, Mr. O’Rourke has maintained a deep wellspring of support in Texas, where many Democrats still display the black-and-white Beto signs from the 2018 campaign on their lawns and on their cars. Mr. O’Rourke did not respond to calls or text messages seeking comment. David Wysong, a longtime adviser to Mr. O’Rourke, cautioned that “no decision has been made” on a run for governor. The three people who discussed their conversations with Mr. O’Rourke are Democratic officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about conversations that were meant to be private.No Democrat has been elected governor of Texas since Ann Richards in 1990. And no prominent Democrat has emerged to take on Mr. Abbott next year. The governor, who has built up a war chest of more than $55 million, has appeared more concerned with insulating himself from challengers on his right in a Republican primary than worrying about the general election. But Democrats see a potential opening. Over the last few months, Texas has bounced from crisis to crisis — including a surge in pandemic deaths and a winter failure of the electric grid — while Republican leaders in Austin have steered the state even farther to the right on issues from guns to elections to abortion. In a survey last month, a majority of Texans told pollsters they thought the state was heading in the wrong direction.Amid the political turmoil, Mr. O’Rourke has stayed active in the state. “He’s been not just making pronouncements, he’s been out there knocking on doors, leading marches, setting up rallies all over the state,” said Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. Mr. Hinojosa said the Supreme Court’s decision to let a strict new abortion law passed by the Texas Legislature go into effect had galvanized many Democrats in the state. The new law effectively bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy and is structured in such a way as to avoid an immediate court challenge.“This whole abortion legislation has changed the dynamics incredibly,” he said. In the 2018 campaign, Mr. O’Rourke showed that he was able to energize Democrats, raise significant sums of money and campaign aggressively across Texas, a large and notoriously difficult place to run a statewide campaign. Even in defeat, his margin against the incumbent Mr. Cruz — 51 to 48 percent — helped lift Democratic candidates in local races and led to gains in the State Legislature that year. The prospect of a run by Mr. O’Rourke against Mr. Abbott — reported by Axios on Sunday — would present Democrats with the biggest and most direct test yet in their attempts to loosen the Republican grip on power in Texas. During his failed presidential run, Mr. O’Rourke took positions, including a hard line on confiscating assault weapons, that could make him vulnerable in any new campaign in Texas. “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” Mr. O’Rourke said during a Democratic debate in Houston in 2019, referring to military-style rifles that have been used in mass shootings.David Carney, a campaign adviser to Mr. Abbott and a longtime Republican political consultant, said that he would not be surprised if Mr. O’Rourke jumped into the race. “O’Rourke has been planning to run since he got crushed in his presidential flop,” Mr. Carney said. “He is a target-rich environment with positions way, way out of the mainstream.” More

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      Russian Election Shows Declining Support for Putin’s Party

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      With voting in the country neither free nor fair, United Russia is still expected to retain power easily even if its seats in Parliament slip.MOSCOW — Early results in Russia’s parliamentary elections showed a rise in opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin’s governing party, though it was nevertheless expected to cruise easily to victory.In partial results broadcast by state television after three days of voting ended on Sunday, the party, United Russia, carried 44 percent of the vote, 10 percentage points less than in the previous election in 2016. In second place, the Communist Party received 22 percent, compared with 13 percent in 2016.Russian elections are not free and fair, and Parliament’s role in recent years has mainly been to rubber-stamp the Kremlin’s initiatives while providing a veneer of democratic legitimacy to Mr. Putin’s rule. Over the weekend, videos of ballot stuffing and other apparent instances of fraud circulated widely on social media. But allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had hoped to use the elections to deliver a rebuke to Mr. Putin by consolidating the opposition vote.The weekend’s elections came amid a harsh crackdown on dissent by the Kremlin and murmurings of popular discontent. Apparently fearing a rebuke at the ballot box, the authorities barred just about all well-known opposition figures from running for Parliament, while forcing many dissidents into exile and declaring popular independent media outlets to be “foreign agents.”The multiday nature of the elections — measures officially put in place to reduce the spread of the coronavirus — increased the likelihood of fraud by making the process harder to monitor, election observers and Kremlin critics said. And given the system by which the 450 seats in the lower house of Parliament, the Duma, are apportioned, United Russia could still maintain its two-thirds majority in the chamber despite getting less than half of the votes.The opposition’s uphill battle was complicated by decisions by Google and Apple to comply with Russian government demands to block access to Navalny-related content that was supposed to coordinate the protest vote. After the two tech giants on Friday removed from their stores a smartphone app connected to Mr. Navalny’s movement, Google over the weekend went further, apparently complying with a government request to block YouTube videos and Google Docs files that Mr. Navalny’s allies were using to coordinate voting across the country’s 225 electoral districts.Google did not respond on Sunday to a request for comment. Mr. Navalny’s allies, who are organizing the protest vote campaign from abroad, said they were notified by Google that their content could be blocked because of a government request.“This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government,” a YouTube message says when users in Russia try to open one of the blocked videos.Google’s compliance with Russia’s demands in recent days has represented a remarkable concession for a company that prides itself on enabling the open exchange of information. In Russia, Google’s products — in particular, YouTube — have helped provide avenues for free expression even as the Kremlin has rolled back democratic freedoms.Specific threats of prosecution against some of Google’s more than 100 employees inside Russia forced the company to take down the Navalny smartphone app, a person familiar with Google’s decision told The New York Times on Friday. Russian courts in recent months have outlawed Mr. Navalny’s movement as extremist and declared his “smart voting” campaign to be illegal.Nevertheless, Mr. Navalny’s allies have been pushing the tactic they call “smart voting” to pool opposition votes and elect as many challengers to United Russia as possible, no matter the challengers’ political views. Their campaign garnered support among opposition-minded voters, many of whom managed to find out which candidate the “smart voting” campaign supported in their district despite Google and Apple’s compliance with the Russian government’s demands.“This is an election without any choice, and while they can make up whatever result is necessary for them, ‘smart voting’ is a good mechanism,” said Philipp Samsonov, 32, a photographer in Moscow. “I hope that one day I can vote with my heart.”Mr. Samsonov said he planned to vote for the candidate picked by the Navalny team in his district — in his case, a Communist — as the person with the best chance of defeating the governing party’s candidate. Mr. Samsonov also said he planned to vote on Sunday evening to reduce the chances that something would happen to his ballot.It was too early to tell Sunday evening whether Mr. Navalny’s smart voting campaign had borne fruit, with the early results providing little clarity on how individual candidates were faring on a district-by-district level. But nationwide, the surge in support for the Communists and the decline for United Russia reflected an increase in Russian discontent. On a YouTube broadcast Sunday evening, a top aide to Mr. Navalny, Leonid Volkov, described the probable loss of seats by United Russia as progress in the strategy of chipping away at Mr. Putin’s hold on power.“This is, to put it lightly, a significant shift in the political landscape of the Russian Federation,” Mr. Volkov said.The “smart voting” app, used by allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny, which Apple and Google removed in Russia on Friday.Alexander Zemlianichenko/Associated PressA ballot box on Sunday in the village of Bolshoy Kunaley, Russia. Videos appearing to show ballot stuffing and other types of fraud during the vote have circulated online.Maxim Shemetov/ReutersGennadi A. Zyuganov, the leader of the Communist Party in Russia, said there had been a “huge amount” of violations in the elections and warned of demonstrations in the coming days — a notable statement because the Communists are typically loyal to Mr. Putin on key issues.“I can’t rule out that all this will lead to mass protests,” Mr. Zyuganov said Saturday on Twitter. “I am sure that people won’t stand for a blatant substitution of their choice.”In St. Petersburg, some independent election observers were removed from polling stations and detained by the police right before votes were counted. One observer, Ksenia Frolova, was detained after filing numerous complaints about irregularities.“We discovered that the same person cast a vote several times at different polling stations,” Ms. Frolova, 18, a biology student, said in a phone interview shortly after being released from a police station. “I feel morally exhausted. You just feel that none of your complaints mattered.”Last year, widespread fraud in the presidential election in neighboring Belarus set off huge street protests — an outcome that analysts say the Kremlin is determined to prevent from occurring in Russia. Buses of riot police officers were stationed around central Moscow throughout the weekend, but there were no significant protests.During the election, the authorities appeared to be pulling out all the stops to get the typical United Russia base to the polls: public sector workers, members of the military and security services, and pensioners. In central Moscow on Friday, groups of men in civilian clothes, all with similar, tightly cropped haircuts, lined up outside a polling station that covers the Russian Ministry of Defense.Some acknowledged that they were members of the military and that they had been “strongly advised” by their commanders to vote on Friday. Others said that they had been given time off to vote before the weekend, which they planned to spend out of town.And many Russians continue to support Mr. Putin. Outside a Moscow polling place, a teacher, Tatyana Kolosova, 46, said she had voted against United Russia to inject some “competition into the political sphere.” She said she hoped for a government shake-up after the elections that would result in more being done to reduce unemployment and support private business.But she dismissed Mr. Navalny as “an enemy of our country” and promised to vote for Mr. Putin if he ran for a fifth term as president in 2024, recalling the relative poverty and chaos of the 1990s, before he came to power.“I’m thankful that God gave us such a leader,” she said.Adam Satariano More

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      In Orange County, the Recall’s Defeat Echoes Years of G.O.P. Erosion

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      Voters struck down the effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom, continuing the political seesawing that has defined the former Republican stronghold.LADERA RANCH, Calif. — When Gail Grigaux first moved to Ladera Ranch in Orange County from the East Coast more than 15 years ago, she knew she had arrived in the conservative heart of Southern California.“If I met anybody new, I would assume they were Republican,” said Ms. Grigaux, 53, a teacher’s assistant.It often felt that way, even as recently as last year when supporters of former President Donald J. Trump drove golf carts with Trump flags and sold Trump paraphernalia on street corners of the master-planned suburban community. But the Democratic side has been nearly as visible lately. A Ladera Ranch social justice Facebook group formed.“I got my little Black Lives Matter sign,” Ms. Grigaux said. Ladera Ranch, much like Orange County itself, is changing.In 2018, Democrats flipped four House seats in Orange County, turning the county entirely Democratic for the first time in the modern era. But in 2020, Democrats ceded two of those seats back to the Republicans even as Mr. Trump lost both Orange County and California overall.Now, in 2021, Democrats have swung Orange County back once again, helping Gov. Gavin Newsom stop the Republican attempt to recall him. Fifty-two percent of voters in Orange County, including Ms. Grigaux, opposed the recall, compared to 48 percent in favor, though the results are still not official.The county’s seesawing status has consequences far beyond its 3.2 million residents, as strategists of both parties see it as a bellwether of key suburban and diversifying House districts nationwide in the 2022 midterms.Many of the touchstones of Orange County’s storied conservatism — the birthplace (and resting place) of Richard M. Nixon, the incubator of the right-wing John Birch Society, the political base of Ronald Reagan — are now decades out of date. The county has steadily transformed into one of the nation’s premier electoral battlegrounds, a place where political and demographic cross currents are all colliding.Nestled along the scenic coastline south of Los Angeles, Orange County has seen an influx of Asian and Latino residents and a backlash from some white voters resistant to change. The college-educated and affluent white voters who once were the backbone of Orange County Republicanism have increasingly turned away from the G.O.P. in the Trump era.The old Orange County represented the cutting edge of Republican politics. Now, in many ways, the county represents the new face of America, and its divisions.“Orange County used to be reliably Republican when it was fairly homogeneous,” said Jim Brulte, a former chairman of the California Republican Party who lives in San Juan Capistrano. “We’re not that Orange County and we haven’t been that Orange County for two decades.”Today, more than one in three of the county’s residents are Hispanic and more than one in five are Asian, according to census data. Forty-five percent of residents speak a language other than English at home. In Santa Ana, 96 percent of the 45,000 students in the school district are Latino. Not far away is Little Saigon, home to the densest population of Vietnamese Americans in the nation. The two Republicans who won back House seats in 2020, Michelle Steel and Young Kim, are both Asian American women.“In Orange County, if you run a cookie-cutter campaign, you are going to lose,” Mr. Brulte said.In Mr. Newsom’s resounding statewide recall victory, and his narrower advantage in Orange County, Democrats see something of a road map for the midterms. Mr. Newsom had carried Orange County by a narrow 50.1 percent in 2018, the year that Democrats picked up four House seats. He outpaced that margin in the recall, winning 52 percent. Roughly 90 percent of the vote had been counted as of Friday evening, with an estimated 130,000 ballots still to be tallied.A senior adviser to Mr. Newsom, Sean Clegg, said the campaign’s analysis of the remaining ballots suggested the governor’s lead would swell further in the coming weeks. He offered a theory for the governor’s success. “Orange County is national ground zero for the realignment of college-educated voters away from Trump’s Republican Party,” Mr. Clegg said, adding that vaccines had proved a particularly potent issue.Ladera Ranch in Orange County is wealthier than California as a whole, with a median household income of $161,348.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesFifty miles south of Los Angeles, Ladera Ranch is an unincorporated maze of well-kept townhomes and tract mansions first built in the rolling foothills of southern Orange County about two decades ago. Its population of 26,170 is whiter and richer than California as a whole: The median household income, $161,348, is a little more than double the state median.As in other wealthy bedroom communities stretching between Santa Ana and San Diego, many residents are outspoken conservatives who in recent years became ardent supporters of Mr. Trump. Earlier this year, federal investigators raided the Ladera Ranch homes of two men in connection with the Jan. 6 siege on the Capitol.Other Trump voters in Ladera Ranch supported the former president more reluctantly.Andrea Dykstra, 40, a stay-at-home mother who has lived in the community for a decade and who identified as “more a libertarian than anything else,” said Mr. Trump was the best choice of less-than-ideal options.“Things are getting so polarized, it’s almost impossible to find more moderate voices,” she said.Ms. Dykstra was, however, passionate about recalling Mr. Newsom, whom she called corrupt and overreaching in his coronavirus pandemic restrictions.“I felt much more strongly that Newsom as governor has a lot more power over my day-to-day than the president does,” she said.Wendy Mage, 57, remembered that when she first lived in Ladera Ranch more than a decade ago, her neighbors vocally opposed gay marriage during California’s epic battle over Proposition 8, a measure to ban same-sex marriage.She moved away and returned with her husband in June to be closer to her mother. This time, she was pleasantly surprised to see a rainbow flag flying.“Oh,” she recalled thinking. “Ladera’s coming around.”Even the smallest shifts in Orange County are tracked closely in Washington. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat of New York and the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said he was feeling bullish after studying the recall results in Orange County — not just for particular seats up for grabs in 2022 but because he sees the region as an indicator of what’s to come.“What I think is important about Orange County is that it’s a good approximation for a battleground district,” Mr. Maloney said. “And it’s a good barometer for where things stand.”For now, the recall is clinging to a roughly 9,500-vote lead in the district of Ms. Steel, the Republican whose seat is contained fully in Orange County. In another Orange County congressional seat, held by Representative Katie Porter, a Democrat, the Republican recall effort was trailing by more than 18,000 votes.Ms. Porter downplayed any comparison between Mr. Newsom’s campaign and her own next year. While Mr. Newsom’s anti-recall rhetoric worked statewide, she said, “that is not a strategy that allows you to productively engage Republicans.”In contrast, Ms. Porter said her emphasis on oversight and accountability work has resonated with constituents regardless of party, even as she has carved out a national reputation as an outspoken progressive.Looking ahead to next year, she said it would be tough to guess “how you would best engage across party lines,” without knowing more about the direction of the Republican Party in Orange County and beyond.Voters cast their recall ballots in Anaheim in Orange County, which has steadily transformed into an electoral battleground. Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesMr. Trump made his biggest gains in Orange County in 2020 around Little Saigon and in Santa Ana, compared to his 2016 results, making inroads in the Vietnamese American community and among working-class Latinos as he hammered Democrats as socialists.But a preliminary 2021 results map from Vance Ulrich, of the nonpartisan consulting firm Redistricting Partners, shows Mr. Newsom’s anti-recall campaign succeeding in places like Garden Grove, Westminster and Santa Ana, cities where Mr. Trump had improved his performance in 2020. Majority-Vietnamese precincts swung heavily from their support of Mr. Trump in 2020 to opposing the recall, Mr. Ulrich said.At the same time, Irvine, one of the largest cities in the country where Asians are the dominant group, has become more solidly blue territory.Marc Marino, 26, has lived in Irvine for most of his life, moving with his parents, who are of Filipino descent, from Hong Kong when he was small. He said his first introduction to politics was through his family’s church, where he remembered leaders advocating Proposition 8, the measure to ban same-sex marriage.Mr. Marino said he eventually stopped going to church, and now identifies as “more of a Berniecrat.” Many of his friends from home have also parted political ways with their more conservative immigrant parents.“Most of my friends have shifted more left,” he said, “which I didn’t expect.”On Tuesday, he cast a ballot against the recall. As a health care worker, he supported Mr. Newsom’s pandemic response.Focusing on the pandemic, the Newsom campaign relentlessly pounded Larry Elder, the Republican front-runner, as a Trump-style candidate who wouldn’t prioritize containing the virus.The result statewide was that 64 percent of vaccinated independent voters opposed the recall, according to David Binder, Mr. Newsom’s pollster. The small slice of unvaccinated independents went overwhelmingly in favor of the recall.“Vaccinations are the driving issue polarizing our electorate in a way that is stronger than standard demographics,” Mr. Binder said.Neal Kelley, who has served as the Orange County voter registrar for the last 16 years, began his job when Republicans still dominated the county rolls. Now there are roughly 10 percent more registered Democrats than Republicans.Mr. Kelley is already hearing word of national efforts by both parties to boost their voter registration ahead of 2022. For now, Democrats keep pressing their advantage.Between the 2020 election and the recall, Republicans added 654 voters to their party rolls, according to state records.In that same time, the Democrats added 22,564. More

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      Justin Trudeau Wanted an Election. Do Voters See a Power Grab?

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      A snap election that was supposed to be a show of strength has instead allowed opponents to highlight the prime minister’s weak points.BURNABY, British Columbia — Outside a TV studio in a Vancouver suburb where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada was recording an interview days ahead of the country’s election, a man shouted insults, mostly obscene, about Mr. Trudeau and his family while blasting Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Going to Take It” from a stereo on a cart.Heckling is something Mr. Trudeau has always faced, but this time the attacks have new bite. After six years in office, a prime minister who promised “sunny ways” and presented himself as a new face is now the political establishment, with a track record, and missteps, for opponents to criticize. Even if the Liberal Party clings to its hold on Parliament, as observers expect, this bruising election campaign has done him no favors.Ben Chin, the prime minister’s senior adviser, said that no politician could have sustained Mr. Trudeau’s initial popularity.“If you’re in power for six years or five years, you’re going to have more baggage,” Mr. Chin said. “You have to make tough decisions that not everybody’s going to agree with.”For much of his time in office, opposition party leaders have accused Mr. Trudeau of putting his personal and political interests ahead of the nation’s good — of which the snap election being held on Monday is the most recent example. They also have had rich material to attack him on over controversies involving a contract for a charity close to his family, and a finding that he broke ethics laws by pressing a minister to help a large Quebec company avoid criminal sanctions.And for every accomplishment Mr. Trudeau cites, his opponents can point to unfulfilled pledges.Anti-vax protesters have thronged his events, some with signs promoting the far-right People’s Party of Canada, prompting his security detail to increase precautions.One rally in Ontario where protesters significantly outnumbered the police was shut down over safety concerns, and at another in the same province, the prime minister was pelted with gravel as he boarded his campaign bus. A local official of the People’s Party later faced charges in that episode of assault with a weapon.Justin Trudeau at an election campaign stop on Friday in London, Ontario.Carlos Osorio/ReutersMr. Trudeau has many achievements since 2015 to point to. His government has introduced carbon pricing and other climate measures, legalized cannabis, increased spending for Indigenous issues, and made 1,500 models of military-style rifles illegal. A new plan will provide day care for 10 Canadian dollars a day per child.Though his popularity has diminished, Mr. Trudeau’s star power remains. When he dropped by the outdoor terrace of a cafe in Port Coquitlam, an eastern suburb of Vancouver, for elbow bumps, quick chats and selfies with voters, a crowd soon swelled.“We love you, we love you,” Joy Silver, a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher from nearby Coquitlam, told Mr. Trudeau.But as Election Day nears, many Canadians are still asking why Mr. Trudeau is holding a vote now, two years ahead of schedule, with Covid-19 infections on the rise from the Delta variant, taxing hospitals and prompting renewed pandemic restrictions in some provinces or delaying their lifting in others.Also criticized was that he called the vote the same weekend Kabul fell to the Taliban, when Canadian troops were struggling to evacuate Canadians as well as Afghans who had assisted their forces.“They’ve been struggling with answering that question the whole campaign,” said Gerald Butts, a longtime friend of Mr. Trudeau’s and a former top political adviser. “And that’s part of why they’re having trouble getting the message across.”Mr. Trudeau has said that he needs to replace his plurality in the House of Commons with a majority to deal with the remainder of the pandemic and the recovery that will follow — although he avoids explicitly saying “majority.” The Liberal Party’s political calculation was that it was best to strike while Canadians still held favorable views about how Mr. Trudeau handled pandemic issues, particularly income supports and buying vaccines.“We’re the party with the experience, the team and the plan to continue delivering real results for Canadians, the party with a real commitment to ending this pandemic,” Mr. Trudeau said at a rally in Surrey, another Vancouver suburb, standing in front of campaign signs for candidates from the surrounding area. “Above all, my friends, if you want to end this pandemic for good, go out and vote Liberal.”During much of the 36-day campaign, the Liberals have been stuck in a statistical tie with the Conservative Party of Canada led by Erin O’Toole, each holding about 30 percent of the popular vote. The New Democrats, a left-of-center party led by Jagmeet Singh, lies well behind at about 20 percent.From left, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,  Jagmeet Singh of the New Democrats, and Erin O’Toole of the Conservatives at a debate in Gatineau, Quebec, this month.Pool photo by Adrian WyldKimberly Speers, a political scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said that Mr. Trudeau’s personality and celebrity may be working against him.“The messaging, from the N.D.P. and the Conservatives especially, is that it’s a power grab and it’s all about him,” she said. “And that message has just really seemed to stick with voters.”Some scandals during his tenure have helped the opposition, too. In 2019, Mr. Trudeau’s veterans affairs minister, an Indigenous woman, quit amid allegations that when she was justice minister he and his staff had improperly pressured her to strike a deal that would have allowed a large Canadian corporation to avoid a criminal conviction on corruption charges.Despite his championing of diversity, it emerged during the 2019 election that Mr. Trudeau had worn blackface or brownface three times in the past. And last year a charity with deep connections to his family was awarded a no-bid contract to administer a Covid financial assistance plan for students. (The group withdrew, the program was canceled and Mr. Trudeau was cleared by the federal ethics and conflict of interest commissioner.)His opponents have also focused on promises they say he’s fallen short on, including introducing a national prescription drug program, creating a new electoral structure for Canada, lowering debt relative to the size of the economy, ending widespread sexual harassment in the military and solitary confinement in federal prisons. The Center for Public Policy Analysis at Laval University in Quebec City found that Mr. Trudeau has fully kept about 45 percent of his promises, while 27 percent were partly fulfilled.Mr. Singh has been reminding voters that Mr. Trudeau vowed to bring clean drinking water to all Indigenous communities. There were 105 boil-water orders in effect at First Nations when Mr. Trudeau took power, with others added later. The government has restored clean water to 109 communities, but 52 boil-water orders remain.“I think Mr. Trudeau may care, I think he cares, but the reality is that he’s often done a lot of things for show and hasn’t backed those up with real action,” Mr. Singh said during the official English-language debate. Mr. O’Toole, for his part, has sought to portray the vote as an act of personal aggrandizement.“Every Canadian has met a Justin Trudeau in their lives: privileged, entitled, and always looking out for number one,” he said at a recent event in rural Ottawa. “He was looking out for number one when he called this expensive and unnecessary election in the middle of a pandemic.”Security and secrecy have increased at Mr. Trudeau’s campaign stops after several of them were disrupted by protesters angry about mandatory Covid-19 vaccination rules and vaccine passport measures that the prime minister has imposed.Justin Trudeau walking with his wife, Sophie, and his son, Hadrien, at a campaign stop on Monday in Vancouver, Canada. Jeff Vinnick/Getty ImagesAt the rally outside of a banquet hall in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, Mr. Trudeau, sleeves rolled up and microphone in hand, gave an energetic speech before diving into a mostly South Asian crowd eager to pose for pictures with him.In a change from previous practice, the crowd had been gathered by invitation rather than by public announcement, partly to keep its size within pandemic limits, and no signs promoted the event on the formidable gate to the remote location. Up on the hall’s roof, two police snipers in camouflage surveyed the scene.After an earlier rally in Ontario was canceled, Mr. Trudeau was asked if American politics had inspired the unruly protests. His answer was indirect.“I think we all need to reflect on whether we do want to go down that path of anger, of division, of intolerance,” he said. “I’ve never seen this intensity of anger on the campaign trail, or in Canada.”Translating wider poll results into precise predictions of how many seats the parties will hold in the next House of Commons is not possible. But all of the current polling suggests that Mr. Trudeau may have alienated many Canadians with an early election call and endured abuse while campaigning, for no political gain. The most likely outcome is that the Liberals will continue to hold power, but not gain the majority he sought.If that proves to be the case, Mr. Butts said, “It’s going to end up pretty close to where we left off, which is a great irony.”Vjosa Isai More

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      Elecciones en Rusia: las activistas llevan la violencia doméstica a la agenda electoral

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      Las mujeres de mediana edad son votantes clave para el partido gobernante, que ha ignorado a las víctimas de la violencia de género.MOSCÚ — Sentada en la estrecha cocina de su sede suburbana en Moscú, Alyona Popova apuntó hacia el complejo de edificios de ladrillo de cinco pisos que tiene al lado y explicó por qué la violencia doméstica está en el centro de su campaña por una curul en la Duma, la Cámara Baja del Parlamento de Rusia.“En cada puerta de entrada, tenemos una historia de violencia doméstica”, dijo Popova. “Justo ahí, tenemos a dos abuelas a las que acaban de golpear sus parientes. En la que viene después, tenemos a una madre con tres hijos. A ella la golpea su marido. Y allá, tenemos a una madre golpeada por su hijo”.Mientras hace campaña por todo el ducentésimo quinto distrito electoral, un área de clase trabajadora en la periferia oriental de Moscú, Popova les implora a las mujeres que se rebelen contra el partido en el poder, Rusia Unida, del presidente Vladimir Putin, el cual ha reducido las protecciones para las mujeres a lo largo de varios años. En la antesala de las elecciones de este fin de semana, Popova ha presentado el asunto en términos urgentes y en el primer lugar de su plataforma de campaña se encuentra una propuesta para que todas las leyes relacionadas con la violencia doméstica estén sujetas a sanciones penales.De acuerdo con el análisis que Popova realizó de datos que recabó la agencia nacional de estadística de Rusia, hay más de 16,5 millones de víctimas de violencia doméstica cada año. Entre 2011 y 2019, más de 12.200 mujeres murieron a manos de sus parejas o parientes, es decir dos terceras partes de las mujeres asesinadas en Rusia, según un estudio.“Esta es nuestra realidad; la única palabra que podemos usar es ‘epidemia’”, opinó Popova, abogada y activista de 38 años que se está postulando por el partido liberal Yablojo, aunque no es integrante de sus filas.Las luces encendidas de un complejo habitacional de la era soviética en el vecindario de Pervomayskaya en MoscúEmile Ducke para The New York TimesHay evidencia de que muchos rusos coinciden con ella. Una encuesta de 2020 que realizó el Centro Levada, una organización independiente, reveló que casi el 80 por ciento de los encuestados cree que es necesaria una legislación que frene la violencia doméstica. Una petición que inició Popova para apoyar esa ley obtuvo un millón de firmas.Sin embargo, ¿los simpatizantes votarán? Y en una Rusia autoritaria, donde los resultados de las elecciones en esencia están predestinados, ¿marcarán una diferencia?Incluso en un país en el que las mujeres representan el 54 por ciento de la población, la violencia doméstica en su mayor parte sigue sin ser un asunto que motive a los votantes y queda en segundo plano detrás de problemas como la corrupción, el aumento de los precios al consumidor, la falta de oportunidades económicas y la pandemia de la COVID-19.“Para nuestros votantes, este problema está en el lugar 90”, comentó el vicepresidente de la Duma, Pyotr O. Tolstoy, quien busca un segundo periodo con Rusia Unida.Tolstoy se burló de las insinuaciones de que las mujeres podrían abandonar a su partido, el cual controla 336 de las 450 curules de la Duma. En efecto, las mujeres son una parte fundamental de la base de votantes de Rusia Unida. En parte esto se debe a que ocupan la mayoría de los trabajos del sector público en campos como la enseñanza, la medicina y la administración, es decir que sus ingresos a menudo dependen del sistema político en el poder.Mientras salía de una estación de metro una tarde reciente, Irina Yugchenko, de 43 años, también expresó su escepticismo en torno a la atención que le ha puesto Popova a la violencia doméstica. “Claro, sin duda debe haber una ley, pero, si les pasa a las mujeres más de una vez, tenemos que preguntarnos por qué”, comentó, haciendo eco de una opinión común en Rusia. “Si mis amigas tuvieran este problema no lo tolerarían”.Yugchenko dijo que no había decidido por quién votar y dudaba que las elecciones produjeran algún cambio, y agregó con cinismo: “No es la primera vez que votamos”. Un estudio de julio de 2021 encontró que tan solo el 22 por ciento de los encuestados planeaba votar, la cifra más baja en 17 años.Un repartidor de folletos del partido Rusia Unida frente a las elecciones legislativas de 2021 de este fin de semana.Emile Ducke para The New York TimesDurante la última década, Putin y su partido se han vuelto cada vez más conservadores en sus políticas sociales. Cuando se agravó el conflicto de Rusia con Occidente, el Kremlin comenzó a promocionarse como el baluarte de las estructuras familiares y apoyó actitudes reaccionarias hacia los rusos de la comunidad LGBTQ.En 2016, el gobierno etiquetó de “agente extranjero” al Centro ANNA con sede en Moscú, el cual ofrece ayuda legal, material y psicológica a las mujeres que enfrentan problemas de abuso. Ese título acarrea connotaciones negativas e impone requisitos onerosos. El año pasado, el gobierno designó a otro grupo, Nasiliu.net (“No a la violencia”), como agente extranjero.En 2017, los representantes de la Duma votaron 380 a 3 para que se despenalizara de forma parcial la violencia doméstica y la redujeron a una infracción administrativa si ocurre no más de una vez al año. Si el daño da como resultado moretones o sangrado, pero no huesos rotos, se castiga con una multa de tan solo 5000 rublos (68 dólares), poco más de lo que se paga por estacionarse en un lugar prohibido. Solo las lesiones como las contusiones y los huesos rotos, o los ataques repetidos en contra de un familiar, generan cargos penales. No hay ningún instrumento legal para que la policía expida órdenes de alejamiento.El borrador de una ley en contra de la violencia doméstica que fue propuesto en 2019 produjo un debate en la Duma, pero a final de cuentas fue modificado tanto que sus primeros partidarios, entre ellos Popova, quedaron “horrorizados”. Nunca se sometió a votación.Sin embargo, en años recientes, varios casos dramáticos han detonado la indignación, por eso el asunto ha empezado a tener potencial político. En un caso famoso de 2017, el esposo de Margarita Gracheva le cortó ambas manos con un hacha, meses después de que ella empezó a pedir protección de la policía. (Más tarde, él fue sentenciado a 14 años de cárcel. Gracheva ahora es presentadora de un programa de la televisión estatal sobre violencia doméstica).“Por fin este problema obtuvo tanta atención que se convirtió en un asunto político”, comentó Marina Pisklakova-Parker, directora del Centro ANNA.En abril, la Corte Constitucional de Rusia les ordenó a los legisladores que modificaran el código penal para castigar a los perpetradores de violencia doméstica repetitiva y concluyó que las protecciones para las víctimas y los castigos para los agresores eran insuficientes. Además, las agrupaciones activistas han registrado repuntes de violencia doméstica relacionados con la pandemia de la COVID-19.La Duma no ha actuado.Muchos votantes de Rusia Unida aprecian los vales gubernamentales que se conceden a las madres. Las prestaciones se han ampliado recientemente a las mujeres con un solo hijo, en un intento de Moscú por aumentar la decreciente tasa de natalidad del país.Pero eso no sustituye a una protección elemental, dijo Oksana Pushkina, una popular presentadora de televisión que entró en la Duma con Rusia Unida en 2016 y que hizo de la lucha contra la violencia doméstica una de sus prioridades.Oksana Pushkina hizo de la lucha contra la violencia doméstica una de sus prioridadesEmile Ducke para The New York Times“Todas estas son medidas de apoyo que están diseñadas para dejar a la mujer en casa, y no crear oportunidades para su autorrealización e independencia económica”, dijo. “De este modo, las autoridades cubren las necesidades básicas de las mujeres rusas, a cambio de su lealtad política. Pero este gasto gubernamental no es para nada una inversión social”.Pushkina, que defendió la ley de violencia doméstica en la Duma, no fue invitada a presentarse a un segundo mandato.“Aparentemente, Rusia Unida y la gente de la gestión presidencial me consideraron demasiado independiente, y a la agenda pro-feminista demasiado peligrosa”, dijo.Expertos y sobrevivientes afirman que gran parte de la oposición al proyecto de ley de 2019 estaba desinformada, ya que muchos opositores afirmaban erróneamente que si se imponía una orden de alejamiento, un hombre podría perder su propiedad, o que los niños podrían ser retirados de las familias.“Tienen miedo de que vuelva la época de Stalin, cuando la gente delataba a sus vecinos”, dijo Irina Petrakova, una asistente de recursos humanos que sobrevivió a siete años de abusos por parte de su exmarido. Dijo que denunció 23 incidentes a las autoridades en ocho ocasiones, pero que su esposo no ha pasado ni un solo día en la cárcel.“Tienen miedo de que vuelva la época de Stalin, cuando la gente delataba a sus vecinos”,  dijo Irina Petrakova.Emile Ducke para The New York TimesElla, Gracheva y otras dos mujeres han demandado a Rusia ante el Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos por no haberlas protegido.Petrakova, que también trabaja como orientadora, dijo que apoyaba a Popova, cuyo distrito es adyacente al suyo. Pero se encogió de hombros cuando se le preguntó si la negativa de Rusia Unida a combatir la violencia doméstica podría alejar a las mujeres del partido. Muchas votantes, dijo, habían vivido la turbulenta década de 1990 y apreciaban la estabilidad.Tenía en sus planes votar, pero dijo que no había candidatos dignos en su distrito.“Si pudiera votar contra todos, lo haría”, dijo.En Rusia, la mayoría de la oposición ha sido encarcelada, exiliada o tiene prohibido postularse a las elecciones de este fin de semana. El domingo, en una pequeña reunión celebrada en un parque con un electorado potencial, Popova, quien tiene como rivales a otros diez candidatos, mencionó que estaba comprometida a participar en las elecciones hasta donde le fuera posible, aunque haya una competencia desleal.Además, dijo sentirse optimista en relación con encuestas que su equipo mandó a hacer, las cuales mostraron un fuerte apoyo a su favor de parte de las mujeres cuya edad oscila entre los 25 y los 46 años.“Esto quiere decir que las mujeres se están uniendo por el futuro, por un cambio”, comentó Popova. “Esta es la mejor victoria que podemos imaginar durante nuestra campaña”.Dos mujeres jóvenes en el público dijeron que planeaban votar por ella.“Para las mujeres de una generación de mayor edad, tal vez sea normal ver violencia doméstica”, comentó Maria Badmayeva, de 26 años. “Pero en la generación más joven somos más progresistas. Pensamos que los valores que defiende Alyona son esenciales”.El centro de Moscú con el muro del Kremlin y la catedral de San Basilio al fondo. Este fin de semana se celebran las elecciones a la Duma rusa.Emile Ducke para The New York TimesAlina Lobzina colaboró con este reportaje.Valerie Hopkins es corresponsal en Moscú. Anteriormente cubrió Europa Central y del Sureste durante una década, más recientemente para el Financial Times. @Valeriein140 More