Putin’s System Survives Local Elections as Some Cracks Appear

(Bloomberg) — Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.The Kremlin used its tight control of the electoral system to ensure its handpicked candidates avoided the embarrassment of runoff votes in gubernatorial votes Sunday, but simmering popular anger over stagnant living standards delivered defeats in other contests, including the Moscow City Council.Strong rivals to the Kremlin’s choices for the 16 governor posts were largely kept off the ballots, 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.In lower-level elections, discontent broke through the tight control. After weeks of the biggest anti-Kremlin demonstrations in seven years in the capital this summer, the ruling party suffered major setbacks in the Moscow City Council election even with nearly all major opposition candidates kept off the ballot.Rivals to the ruling party won 20 seats in the 45-person chamber, and the head of United Russia’s Moscow office, Andrey Metelsky, was defeated. Kremlin critics said the results showed the success of their strategy of calling on supporters to vote for individual candidates other than the ruling party, seeking to concentrate their support to defeat those from United Russia.Voters in 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 Kremlin avoided repeating the embarrassing result it suffered last year, when three United Russia incumbents lost gubernatorial races. 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 the smart voting template has proven that it can achieve results. “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,” Boris Makarenko, an analyst at the Moscow-based Center for Political Technologies, said. To contact the reporters on this story: Jake Rudnitsky in Moscow at [email protected];Evgenia Pismennaya in Moscow at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at [email protected], Gregory L. WhiteFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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