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2.0 Politics
2.1 Russia’s regional elections won by Kremlin proxy United
Russia
Russia’s important regional elections held on September 13 where won by the ruling United Russia party. Elections for more than a dozen governors and seats on regional and city councils were held in 83 of Russia’s 85 regions, in what was also widely seen as a dry run for the 2011 parliamentary elections.
Both the Kremlin and the opposition used the elections to test out new techniques of thwarting each other.
Early votes accounted for more than 50% of ballots cast during Russia’s important regional elections held on September 13 raising concerns of vote rigging.
As bne IntelliNews reported the opposition score a few successes in the vote to elect over a dozen governors and members of regional and city councils that was seen as a dry run of the Kremlin’s political machine ahead of crucial 2011 parliament elections. However, the vast majority of races were won by the incumbent ruling party United Russia.
Following changes to the constitution voted through earlier this year a new system was introduced that allows voters to vote early online. The system has been heavily criticised as it makes ballot stuffing much easier and Belarus' self-appointed president Alexander Lukashenko used the same system of early voting to massively falsify the results of the presidential vote on August 9, cheating that was evidence by a statistical study of the results.
“In Russia, in majority of regions where there were regional and local elections on 13 September, the reported "early voting" (dark blue in chart) contributed over 50% of total reported turnout. "Early voting" is used as a method of electoral rigging,” tweeted Alex Kokcharov, a political analyst at IHS Markit.
Early voting was one of the several tricks used by the Kremlin to ensure it keeps a grip on power in the regions. In another hotly contested race in Novosibirsk the opposition managed to break United Russia’s control over the city council and Sergey Boyko, a member of anti-corruption blogger and opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s opposition movement, won the election to head the council.
However, United Russia eventually took control of the council after several “independent” candidates decided to join the United Russia’s fraction after the results were announced.
“In Novosibirsk, Russia, the ruling United Russia party won only 23 out of 50 seats in the city council. But it is likely to keep majority in the city council as
9 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com
