“Putin's nose bloodied by Russia's rival mayoral candidates” is an article published by the British daily Guardian today on the results of the elections in Russia that took place on September 8.
“Opposition's Alexei Navalny officially achieves 27.3% of Moscow vote, with Yekaterinburg's Yevgeny Roizman in even closer race,” the article summarizes the results.
“Russia's opposition movement recorded its most telling electoral result in 13 years of Vladimir Putin's rule on Sunday when candidates for mayor in two of the country's largest cities pulled off impressive results against incumbents,” the author writes.
“Opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny won 27.24% of the vote for the Moscow mayoralty, but he immediately disputed the result, saying it was marred by "many serious violations," the author states.
"We consider the official election results to be deliberately falsified," the Guardian quotes Navalny as saying after the elections.
Official results on Monday morning gave Kremlin ally Sergei Sobyanin, the acting mayor, 51.37%, enough to clear the 50% threshold needed to avoid a second-round runoff, while the independent Alliance of Observers counted 49.7% for Sobyanin and 28.3% for Navalny.
“In Russia's "third capital" of Yekaterinburg, anti-drug activist Yevgeny Roizman appeared to have beaten his opponent from the ruling United Russia party in the mayoral race,” the article reads.
“The head of the Yekaterinburg electoral commission said on Monday morning Roizman had won by a margin of more than 3%, but that this result was still being finalised. Several exit polls on Sunday showed Roizman had won by a slim margin. Such a result would also be an embarrassment for the Kremlin,” the article states.
“The old political system is dead," said liberal political figure Leonid Gozman on the opposition-leaning TV channel Dozhd. "What happened in Moscow and Yekaterinburg … is related to people who are not associated with any party" in the Kremlin-controlled political system, the author underlines.
