Belarusian activist and prankster Vladislav Bukhan, along with former Russian political prisoners and artists, sent a fake order to budget institutions on behalf of the United Russia party to publish campaign materials with profiles of fictitious candidates before the party’s primaries.
The procedure was called “The choice has already been made.” Its goal, according to the prankster, is to show that state employees “support the system with their compliance and diligence.”
The names of the candidates, who were the authors of the procedure themselves, were changed, and their biographies were invented.
- Sasha Skochelenko became “Alexandra Skocheva”. Her fictitious CV says: “Mother of three. Alexandra worked as a product display specialist in a store. From the beginning, she started volunteering as a weaver of camouflage nets.” Skolcheva is running in the elections to promote “traditional values.”
- Pavel Kriseevich became “Pavel Riseevich” – a former “difficult teenager” who “could not find himself in life for a long time.” According to the description on the poster, he went to fight in Ukraine after trying to commit suicide due to unhappy love, and after being wounded he joined United Russia. Risevich advocates for veterans’ rights.
- Vladislav Bukhanov became Vladislav Bukhanov, a war veteran and teacher of “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” (this is the subject that replaced life safety in Russian schools). After the elections, Bukhanov plans to engage in patriotic education in schools.
Posters bearing the name “Candidates” to publish In budgetary institutions and institutions of Primorsky and Khabarovsk regions, as well as Yakutia. According to Bukhan, the institutions’ employees did not have any questions about the “candidates’ CVs.”