MOSCOW — Voters in Moscow go to the polls in a local election on Sunday, but when they examine their ballot papers, they won’t find a single candidate running on the ticket of President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.

Instead, more observant voters will discover United Russia members posing as “independent candidates” in an apparent bid to distance themselves from Putin’s increasingly unpopular party.

This is the first time since it was formed in 2001 that United Russia has failed to nominate — officially — candidates for the City Duma polls. Its logo, a bear, once ubiquitous in the run-up to elections, is conspicuously absent from campaign billboards. Opposition activists have defaced election posters for “independent” candidates affiliated to Putin’s party with stickers reading: “Caution! United Russia candidate.”

“It’s like a black mark against a candidate if they publicly acknowledge that they are a United Russia party member,” said Konstantin Gaaze, a political analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank. “This party is pretty dead.”

United Russia’s plummeting ratings mean that Putin could be forced into a rethink of the party’s role as he attempts to engineer a way to stay in power.

Support for United Russia has plummeted over a controversial five-year increase in the retirement age and a series of corruption allegations, putting at risk the party’s domination of Russia’s parliament and complicating Putin’s efforts to extend his rule beyond 2024, when his presidential term (technically his last) expires.

A poll published in April by Vtsiom, the state pollster, indicated that only 22 percent of voters in Moscow would back a United Russia candidate in the City Duma election, while 37 percent said they would choose an independent. Another poll, published in July by the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, an independent think tank, found that just 11 percent of Muscovites now support United Russia. Gaaze estimated that backing for United Russia in central Moscow districts near the Kremlin, widely considered to be liberal strongholds, could be in the single figures.

Putin also pulled the “independent” trick last year, winning reelection after dumping United Russia during his presidential election campaign. However, his own ratings have slumped to near-record lows this year amid growing poverty.

United Russia is providing its undercover candidates for the City Duma with massive financial backing. Moscow Election Commission records indicate that over 30 candidates with established ties to Putin’s party have received around 800 million roubles (€10.9 million) from organizations connected to United Russia and the All-Russia Popular Front, another Kremlin-backed organization.

Andrei Metelsky, the leader of Putin’s party in Moscow, denied that the decision to run as independents is an attempt by United Russia-linked candidates to mislead voters. Instead, he insisted it is a demonstration of political courage. “We are not hiding beneath the party banner,” he wrote in a Facebook post in May. “We are not afraid of personal responsibility and we are ready to answer to our electorate.”

Vedomosti, a Russian business newspaper, reported Thursday that the Kremlin is considering pulling Metelsky from the election over alleged corruption involving property in the Austrian alps worth some €78 million. The allegation, which Metelsky denies, was first made in July by Alexei Navalny, the prominent Kremlin critic.

It’s not only in Moscow that United Russia is experiencing problems. Nationwide, the ruling party has the support of around 32 percent of voters, according to Vtsiom. Last year, United Russia candidates lost four local governor elections to rivals from the Communist Party and the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia. While both the Communists and the LDPR are ostensibly in opposition to United Russia, they are widely believed to be controlled to varying degrees by the Kremlin.

Besides the high-profile City Duma poll in Moscow, votes are also taking place on Sunday to elect the heads of 16 of Russia’s regions, as well as lawmakers to 13 regional parliaments. In an unprecedented move, six of the United Russia governors running for reelection are standing as independents. In St. Petersburg, acting governor Alexander Beglov, the former head of United Russia’s branch in the city, is the only candidate without official party backing. His biography was wiped from United Russia’s website ahead of the vote. Beglov insists that his party is “the people.”

How to stay in power

United Russia’s plummeting ratings mean that Putin could be forced into a rethink of the party’s role as he attempts to engineer a way to stay in power after his current term of office comes to an end. Under Russia’s constitution, presidents are barred from serving more than two consecutive terms. The constitution can only be rewritten if the ruling party has a two-thirds majority in parliament and although United Russia currently enjoys such a majority, its fading fortunes mean changes to Putin’s carefully constructed political system could be imminent.

Bloomberg News reported in July that the Kremlin was considering cutting the share of seats elected from party lists in parliament from 50 percent to 25 percent. The rest of the seats would be contested in local districts, allowing United Russia members to run as nominal independents. “It’s easier to sacrifice the party and proceed with so-called independent candidates,” said Gaaze, the analyst.

While no opposition candidates have been allowed to stand in the City Duma race, that doesn’t mean Navalny and his supporters intend to watch passively from the sidelines.

Despite United Russia’s unpopularity, meaningful reforms to shake up the party are unlikely in the near future, said Tatiana Stanovaya, head of the political analysis firm R.Politik. That’s because, she said, Putin’s advisers are feeding him inaccurate information, telling him that United Russia’s ratings are declining solely because of pension reforms and that the situation is “manageable and stable.”

The City Duma vote comes after government-loyal election officials barred Kremlin critics from the ballot, sparking the largest opposition protests since 2012. Over 2,500 people were arrested as protesters faced off against police in central Moscow for five straight weekends this summer. Although most of those detained were quickly released, five people have so far been handed prison sentences. Among them was Kirill Zhukov, who was imprisoned for three-and-a-half years for lifting a police officer’s visor. Five other suspects are still awaiting trial. Critics say the charges were trumped up to dissuade Russians from attending opposition rallies.

On Thursday, Konstantin Kotov, a 34-year-old opposition activist, was sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of attending multiple unsanctioned, yet peaceful protests. The sentence came shortly after Putin told an economic forum in Vladivostok that Russians have the right to protest.

“United Russia no longer represents the interests of the majority of people, and the Kremlin knows this very well,” said Lyubov Sobol, a lawyer with Navalny’s anti-corruption organization. Sobol undertook a 32-day hunger strike this summer in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to force her way onto the City Duma ballot. “But the authorities are trying to take the right to run in elections and the right to protest away from us.”

“Vote for the candidate most likely to weaken United Russia and its monopoly,” said Alexei Navalny in an online video.

Project, an investigative journalism website that often cites sources within the government and other power structures, reported this week that authorities took the decision to bar opposition candidates after internal polling revealed that Kremlin critics were poised to win at least nine seats in the City Duma.

Ilya Yashin, another aspiring opposition candidate, was 28 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival before he was removed from the race, according to an opinion poll published by the Levada Center, an independent think tank in Moscow.

Although the 45-seat City Duma has few significant powers, Kremlin strategists are concerned that victory on Sunday would allow opposition candidates to gain a political platform ahead of parliamentary elections due in 2021, an official involved in the discussions told Project.

While no opposition candidates have been allowed to stand in the City Duma race, that doesn’t mean Navalny and his supporters intend to watch passively from the sidelines. Navalny is pushing a strategic voting plan aimed at depriving United Russia of its majority. “Vote for the candidate most likely to weaken United Russia and its monopoly,” he explained in an online video.

In many cases, however, Navalny’s plans would involve voting for Communist Party or nationalist candidates, something that many Russian liberals would likely balk at. The strategy was defended by Oleg Stepanov, who heads operations at Navalny’s headquarters in Moscow. “We want to see different forces in parliament, to make it into a platform for discussion,” he said.

The “Smart Voting” plan, as Navalny has dubbed it, also has the potential to force United Russia into the kind of blatant election fraud that sparked massive protests after the 2011 parliamentary elections.

“United Russia is a liability for its candidates,” said Stepanov, who is overseeing the training of election monitors for Sunday’s polls. “And so the authorities have only one way to save themselves — by rigging these elections.”

Late Thursday, masked police officers raided Navalny's anti-corruption offices, his headquarters, and the studio where he records videos for his popular YouTube channel. "Smart Voting has clearly got the authorities spooked," he said in a social media post.