Page 18 - RusRPTOct23

2.8 Russia held regional and municipal elections in several of its regions on September 8-10 in a wet run for 2024 presidential elections
Russia held regional and municipal elections in several of its regions on September 8-10 and also staged votes in the occupied territories of Ukraine. According to the official tally, in gubernatorial elections, incumbents won in every region. This includes Khakassia, where the Kremlin unsuccessfully tried to mount a challenge to Communist Governor Valentin Konovalov. Konovalov won 63.14% of the vote, the lowest proportion of any governor, in what was the only truly competitive gubernatorial election, BMB Russia reports.
Other incumbent governors scored above 70%, with the freshly-appointed head of the Smolensk Region, Vasily Anokhin, scoring as high as 86.62%. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanintook 76.39%, which, some may notice, is slightly below Vladimir Putin’s result in the 2018 Presidential election.
The votes followed a familiar pattern: first, online turnout skyrocketed. In Moscow, as much as 80% of those who took part in the election voted online, according to official data. In other regions that used it, online votes typically represented between 10% and 20% of the turnout, and several regions sawreports of coerced voting of public and private employees. Later, as reports of rigging continued to roll in, the authorities started intimidating observers and journalists. There were several reports of observers being handed draft summons at polling stations. Votes in the occupied territories were likely mostly falsified. In any case, these votes were illegal and the official results—which registered high turnout and sweeping victories for United Russia—are impossible to verify, as no real election observers had access to the elections. However, the authorities did send a motley crew of assorted Western crooks, extremists, and people with close links to the authorities to mimic election observation.
Apart from the control of “administrative resources” and coercion, the ruling United Russia party also benefited from the peculiarities of electoral systems in regional legislative votes. In Khakassia, for example, United Russia will control Parliament, even though the Governor’s Communist Party received more votes. In several other regions—such as the Irkutsk and Ulyanovsk regions, Yakutia, and the Transbaikal Territory (which could be called relatively pluralistic by Russian standards)—United Russia scored strong majorities in legislatures. This has prompted angry reactions, even from the representatives of the systemic opposition. In Transbaikal, for example, every opposition party condemned the conduct of the vote in harsh words, while in Ulyanovsk, the local chapter of the Communist Party outright refused to recognize the results. Vyacheslav Markhaev, a Communist deputy in the State Duma, also raised doubts about whether the results of regional legislative elections in Buryatia could be recognized.
18 RUSSIA Country Report October 2023 www.intellinews.com