Alexei Navalny, the opposition candidate for Moscow’s mayor who was just beaten in Sunday’s election (according to official results) had proposed a hard limit on the cost of cars purchased for public officials. The Minister for Open Government, Mikhail Abyzov, then said that he also wanted to impose a limit on the costs of these […]
Kommersant publishes this article, claiming that Russia will go ahead and deliver the S-300, a powerful anti-aircraft system, to Iran. However, Interfax news agency has published an article which disputes this claim. Their source says that the delivery of the modified S-300 system can’t be excluded, but that no plan has yet been put into […]
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, […]
Alexei Navalny and his campaign manager maintain that Sergei Sobyanin did not receive more than 50% of the votes, which would force a runoff vote between Sobyanin and Navalny, the top two vote-getters in Moscow’s mayoral election. For more background on yesterday’s elections, click here. For a summary of the election results as of this […]
