The following is a translation of the breakdown of the official Moscow mayoral election results by district. Some key facts pop out right away. In the Gagarinsky, where independent monitors reported the fewest amount of irregularities, Navalny actually beat Sobyanin. Furthermore, he scored 7% points higher than Putin’s opponent in the 2012 Presidential election. In […]
Russia’s media is highly impacted by government control. Many news organizations have direct or indirect ties to the Russian government, and yet many more have ties to a web of Russian power brokers. Even when a newspaper is independent, the power of Russia’s power structure can be felt in the press. Since 2001, four journalists […]
Voter turnout in Moscow’s elections was less than 34%, while the sociologists forecasted 45-52%. What’s wrong with Muscovites? That’s what The New Times tried to figure out Six hours after the opening of polling stations the turnout was disastrously low, below 17%, then it went up, but in the end turned out to be still […]
Alexei Navalny gave a speech to the crowd gathered at Bolotnaya Square which, of course, was quite different from the one that was given last night from the stage in the same location by Sergei Sobyanin. Slon publishes here a transcription of the speech: If you want to know how a rock star feels, then […]
This week’s headline concerning Russia’s elections has focused on how United Russia has lost power, or at least has struggled to maintain its power. The most obvious example is in Moscow, where United Russia incumbent Sergei Sobyanin clings to an official vote count that, if it holds, would barely prevent a runoff election. All the […]
While the focus is on Moscow, for many obvious reasons, we’ll also be trying to look at election results from across Russia in order to get a sense of the larger trends in Russia’s electoral process. This is a report about a heated and contested mayoral election in Yekaterinburg (sometimes written as “Ekaterinburg,” map), the 4th […]
This is a tongue-in-cheek post about what the Russian opposition should do on election day. Obviously, the election has already past, but this article actually provides a really good “idiot’s guide” to how votes in Russia are counted, and how they are supposed to be. Alexei Navalny is claiming that the incumbent mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, […]
Today is the Mayoral election in Moscow. Updates are below. A guide to the background of the election, and why the election is important, is published at the bottom of this article (click here to jump to it). UPDATES: 7:36 EDT: Navalny polling at 27.39&, Sobyanin at 51.14% with 92.08% of districts reporting. 6:38 EDT: Navalny polling […]
Moscow’s mayoral election is today, and opposition candidate Alexei Navalny is behind in the polls. Digging through some of the latest polling, it appears that Navalny, while he has growing support, also has very high unfavorability ratings among many who think he’s too radical. This assessment is a translation of an article by a political […]
Vladimir Putin would like Barack Obama to come Russia so they could “talk and discuss the outstanding issues”, but he sees “no disaster”, if that meeting doesn’t happen. This is what the Russian president said in an interview to the “First Channel” and the Associated Press news agency. He explained that the contacts between the […]
