News
Pussy Riot lawyer launches blockchain poll to question legitimacy of Russian election
Russian voters who don’t believe the 2024 presidential election was fair can now raise their voices via an encrypted, blockchain-protected referendum via the Russia2024 app.
This year’s March presidential election saw tens of thousands of Russian citizens line up to vote in embassies around the world. Outside the embassy in The Hague, Netherlands, voters – many carrying protest banners – waited for hours to make their voices heard.
In theory. No one was surprised when Vladimir Putin was again announced as the winner with 88% of the votes. Not necessarily for having directly falsified the result, but as a result of years of alarmist propaganda, voter surveillance and elimination of any real opponents.
Now, those voters have been offered a different avenue to express their discontent with their home country’s seemingly immovable political status quo (and for blockchain technology to demonstrate that it has uses beyond encryption).
TNW Conference – Are you an investor? This message is for you!
Meet the hottest startups and discover your next venture on June 20th and 21st. Rush! Price increase on May 17th.
Russian opposition activist and former Pussy Riot lawyer Mark Fegyin launched the blockchain-based referendum to challenge the legitimacy of this year’s elections. Now it’s live on the new one Russia2024 app. First launched in March, the application is based on the unattended voting solution Freedom Tool from privacy software specialist RariLabs, based in Kiev, Ukraine.
A surveillance-proof protest route
Opposition activism and political dissent in Russia are associated with persecution, imprisonment and even death. Therefore, despite the desire to speak out, both against the war in Ukraine and against the increasingly suffocating political climate within the country, people remain silent because they – rightfully – fear for their lives.
The fear of surveillance also makes it highly unlikely that voting and poll results are representative of real feelings.
“Dissent in Russia is becoming increasingly risky and public opinion is increasingly difficult to monitor,” said Mark Feygin, creator of Russia2024. “Providing reliable, surveillance-proof avenues for protests and polls is critical. Russia2024 and its underlying technology have enabled this.”
RariLab’s Rariro division created Freedom Tool to help give a voice to people living under an authoritarian regime. It uses blockchain and zero-knowledge encryption technology to ensure that authorities cannot track those using the platform, despite having verified their eligibility to vote. It is open source and unlicensed, available for download to anyone.
Lasha Antadze, co-founder of Rarimo provider RariLabs, said its implementation in Russia is a prime example of how blockchain and zero-knowledge cryptography can meet the urgent need for privacy technology around the world.
Using the app, voters scan their biometric passports with their phones, proving citizenship and eligibility. They then receive an anonymous voting pass for polls and protest elections. The app then publishes the votes directly to the blockchain where they are tamper-proof.
Zero-knowledge encryption allows one party to prove to another party that they possess certain information, without revealing any information beyond knowing it.
The spark that went out
Mark Feygin is the former lawyer of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, whose members stormed the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and performed their anti-Putin “punk prayer” in February 2012.
A judge subsequently sentenced them to two years in prison for “hooliganism”. (One of their spokespersons recently he received an eight-year prison sentence for posting about the war in Ukraine on social media.)
At the same time, over 100,000 people braved the Russian capital’s freezing -18°C winds to express their outrage at what they perceived as the fraudulent and unfair election cycle that was about to orchestrate Vladimir Putin’s reinstatement as president, after a four-year replacement for Dmitry Medvedev.
The atmosphere was one of indignation mixed with hope, as the chant “Russia without Putin” rang through the streets. I know, because I was there.
The feeling was that it could finally be like this: enough was enough. There was an attitude of contempt, as if the people had seen through the pretense and were fed up with their rulers patronizing and outright lying. Unfortunately, as we have seen, this was not to be the case.
Slowly drowning out dissenting voices
Crude as they may be, the methods of oppression and politics of fear implemented by Russia’s ruling elite have proven effective in killing not only the individuals leading what could have been a wave of epochal change, but also the belief that such change is even possible.
Unfortunately, the propaganda claiming that Putin is the only one who can prevent the country from falling into the same state of disorder and despair that it experienced in the 1990s has been incredibly successful.
It has managed to convince people that they are now well off, when in reality they have only been fed with the leftovers of the riches that unscrupulous leaders and their friends have hoarded.
Delving into the psychological processes that laid the foundations is beyond the scope of this article. But in short, Russia’s authoritarian leaders have historically profited from a collective cognitive framework that asserts that people exist to serve those in power, not the other way around.
The Kremlin responds with fake reviews
Work like that behind an app like Russia2024 is certainly not without danger, as the recent death of Alexei Navalny so painfully illustrates.
So far, the Kremlin has only resorted to obstructing the app, which was temporarily removed from the Apple Store. Moscow then attempted to lower the app’s rating by paying for negative reviews, a strategy exposed by a whistleblower.
Initiatives where people can have confidence that their privacy is safe and that the authorities will not persecute them for expressing their opinion are crucial in a country where using the wrong word on Facebook can land you in prison up to at 15 years old. If this is what someone wants to use blockchain for, I have my say.