Putin Critics Claim Win in Moscow as Kremlin Dominates Vote

(Bloomberg) --

Simmering popular anger led to setbacks for Russia’s ruling party in closely watched races in Moscow Sunday, even as the Kremlin used its tight control of the electoral system to ensure wins for its handpicked candidates in gubernatorial votes elsewhere.

After weeks of the biggest anti-Kremlin demonstrations in seven years in the capital this summer, the United Russia party lost a third of its seats in the Moscow City Council election even though nearly all major opposition candidates were kept off the ballot.

In the main contests, strong rivals to the Kremlin’s choices for the 16 governor posts were largely blocked from running, ensuring wins for the candidates backed by President Vladimir Putin. Some analysts had forecast that the least popular might not get the 50% needed to win in the first round, but preliminary results suggested all had cleared that bar.

Nationally, the Kremlin avoided repeating the embarrassment it suffered last year, when three United Russia incumbents lost gubernatorial races amid widespread anger over an increase to the pension age. But the opposition is claiming a victory, with the results showing that popular opposition is visible even in Russia’s stage-managed elections and that its “smart voting” template can achieve results.

‘Anti-Authority Mood’

“The Kremlin has learned last year’s lesson: when the social mood and economic situation isn’t great, the only way to win is shepherd in the candidates to avoid letting an anti-authority mood awaken in the voters,” said Boris Makarenko, an analyst at the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies.

In the capital, rivals to the ruling party won 20 seats in the 45-person chamber, compared to just seven in the last elections in 2014. Among the defeated politicians were longtime council chairman and the head of United Russia’s Moscow unit, Andrey Metelsky, and the deputy rector of the Higher School of Economics, Valeria Kasamara.

Kremlin critics said the results showed the success of their strategy of calling on supporters to vote for individual candidates running against those backed by the ruling party, seeking to concentrate their support to defeat those from United Russia. The opposition was testing the strategy, dubbed “smart voting,” ahead of the 2021 nationwide elections to the lower house of parliament.

The results were a defeat for the mayor’s office, according to Alexey Chesnakov, a former senior Kremlin official who now consults the authorities.

“There was a pointed refusal of United Russia,” Chesnakov said. “Both the opposition and, more importantly, the voters felt that the authorities are afraid and that the government wants to deceive them. It’s not just an embarrassment, it’s a mistake. And this mistake will create headaches for the authorities for a long time.”

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin was magnanimous in defeat, tweeting “the council has become more politically diverse which, I hope, will benefit the city parliament.”

The triumph of the opposition is likely to be largely symbolic, given the city council’s limited powers. The biggest beneficiary from the protest vote was the Communist Party, which often votes with the ruling party on important issues.

Kremlin Unpopularity

Some irregularities were reported in the votes around Russia. Videos circulated on social media that appeared to show examples of ballot stuffing in Moscow, and opposition leader Alexey Navalny claimed falsifications resulted in Kremlin candidates winning in at least three races. In St. Petersburg, where Putin ally Alexander Beglov was reelected governor, turnout at 6 p.m. was 24% before leaping to 42% by the close of polling at 8 p.m.

Officials said violations were minor.

Voters in some other regions also rejected Kremlin-backed politicians. The far east region of Khabarovsk elected only two candidates from the ruling United Russia party to the local assembly, with the remaining 34 going to rival parties.

“The recent elections were on the whole successful for the federal authorities,” Mikhail Vinogradov, the head of the St. Petersburg Politics Foundation, said. “The emphasis on removing opposition candidates in a number of regions shows that the government’s most serious challenger is not a strong competitor, but its own unpopularity.”

--With assistance from Ilya Arkhipov.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at jrudnitsky@bloomberg.net;Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at epismennaya@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net, Gregory L. White, Natasha Doff

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