Draft:Elvira Vikhareva

Elvira Vladimirovna Vikhareva (Russian: Эльвира Владимировна Вихарева) is a Russian opposition politician. and former candidate for the State Duma. She has supported free elections and freedom of speech.

Early life
Vikhareva is from Irkutsk, Russia.

2019 rallies
In 2019, Vikhareva was one of the organizers of the rally on Sakharov Avenue. The "Let's take back our right to vote" rally on August 10, according to White Counter estimates, brought together up to 60 thousand people and became the largest since 2011. All the organizers were invited to talk to the police the day before. Despite this, the rally took place on the appointed day.

Applications were been submitted to the Moscow City Hall to hold rallies for fair elections on September 21 and 22.

The Moscow City Hall rejected two applications to hold a rally and march for free elections on August 24. The head of Gennady Gudkov's headquarters, Vikhareva, who was removed from the Moscow City Duma elections, Alexander Solovyov, and the coordinator of the Moscow branch of Open Russia, Tatyana Usmanova, sent two applications to the mayor's office on Tuesday, August 13, to hold a rally and march on August 24.

The Moscow prosecutor's office warned Vikhareva of responsibility for organizing uncoordinated actions and participating in them.

2021 election
In the 17-19 September 2021 Russian legislative election in the Babushkinsky constituency Vikhareva received 2.40% of votes. She was a candidate of the Party of Growth.

Candidates who lost elections in single-mandate districts of the capital addressed the Central Election Commission with a demand to cancel the election results in Moscow, hold new ones, ban electronic voting and initiate criminal proceedings against its organizers. After the elections, Vikhareva, a candidate for the State Duma in the 196th district of Moscow, tried to challenge the results of the vote count and through the courts to seek the cancellation of the election results in Moscow.

2022-present
The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow removed Vikhareva as a candidate from the 2022 municipal elections in the Yakimanka district.

In April 2022, leaflets with their photos and the inscription "Supports Ukrainian Nazis" were hung on the doors of Vikhareva and Nodari Khananashvili, a fellow politician.

She sued the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, who banned her from her social networks.

On March 24 2023 she was speaking to CNN's Erin Burnett after allegedly being poisoned in Russia. She had traces of toxic potassium dichromate in her blood and she began showing first painful symptoms in November 2022 and later in December 2022 and February 2023. The symptoms included severe stomach pain, an increased heart rate, numbness in her extremities, muscle spasms, fainting, and hair loss.

On April 21 2023 Russia's Ministry of Justice had added Vikhareva to the list of "foreign agents".