Back United Russia’s strongest challengers or spoil your ballot? Russia’s opposition can’t agree on a strategy for the upcoming State Duma election.

Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov, speaking at a meeting with supporters in St. Petersburg, sharply criticized the voting strategy for the State Duma elections proposed by exiled opposition politicians Yulia Navalnaya and Maxim Katz. The basic idea behind the strategy is to vote for any party other than United Russia in the party-list race, and for the strongest opponents of the ruling party in the single-member district races. Yabloko’s strategy (its list was barred from the State Duma election) is to spoil the ballot in the party-list vote. After Rybakov’s remarks, Katz responded. We recap thei