(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – September 10, 2013) The pro-Kremlin Moscow mayor-elect Sergei Sobyanin may have won a firm victory in Sunday’s polls, but unexpectedly high results for his rival, opposition activist Alexei Navalny, suggest authorities got more than they bargained for when they called for snap elections. Instead of a mayor legitimized by the first competitive […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 10, 2013) The Moscow city elections commission endorsed official results of the mayoral election on Tuesday. Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin was proclaimed the winner. He gained 51.37% of the vote while the voter turnout stood at 32.07%. RPR-PARNAS candidate Alexei Navalny ranked second with 27.24% of the vote. Ivan Melnikov (the Communist Party) was third […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 9, 2013) Human rights activists call the organization of the Sunday mayoral elections in Moscow exemplary but quoting their own sources say that a runoff could be held to determine the mayor. “There were no crude breaches of law, but there were subtle irregularities which we still have to study,” cochairman of Golos movement council Grigory […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 8, 2013) Human rights defenders did not find any serious violations that might influence the outcomes of the Moscow mayoral elections as of the moment polling stations closed down. “No such violations were recorded as of the moment polling stations closed down. But another important procedure, the count of votes, is still ahead,” Golos co-leader Grigory […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 9, 2013) Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov expressed regret Monday that he had not run for Moscow’s mayor, saying that he would have posed a more serious challenge to the incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, than opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Prokhorov, leader of the pro-business Civic Platform party, said he had not been able to make a bid […]
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(Interfax – September 9, 2013) Moscow mayoral election procedureRussian Prime Minister, leader of the United Russia party Dmitry Medvedev thinks that the single election day, September 8, showed a real political competition in Russia. “The elections were not easy. They showed the increased activity of non-parliamentary parties, including the recently registered ones. In general, there were 110,000 candidates from 54 […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 8, 2013) Opposition activist Alexei Navalny scored high in the Moscow mayoral elections and he has a political future, Center for Political Technologies First Vice-President Alexei Makarkin said. Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin is leading in the election with 56% of the vote, and Navalny goes second with 29%, according to the Center for Political Technologies’ […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – September 9, 2013) What to make of opposition blogger Alexei Navalny’s unexpectedly strong result in the Moscow mayor elections on Sunday, September 8? With over 98% of the votes counted Navalny received 27.37% against the incumbent Sergei Sobyanin’s 51.15%, the election committee said on Monday, September 9. Navalny’s tally is a lot more than […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 6, 2013) Televised debates between the Moscow mayoral candidates did not stir much interest among audiences, with only half a percent of residents watching the most popular round of debates on Aug. 16. Sociologists attributed weak interest to acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s refusal to participate, Kommersant reported. A total of eleven debates have been […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 5, 2013) There will be no vote-rigging in Moscow, the Moscow region, or any other regions of Russia, the Golos movement said. “The situation in some regions has changed dramatically, primarily in Moscow and the Moscow region. I am almost confident that there will be no direct vote-rigging on the voting day and the ballots will […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Kristen Blyth – September 6, 2013) On September 8, Muscovites will take to the polling booths to cast their votes for the next mayor of the capital. That wasn’t supposed to happen this year; incumbent Sergei Sobyanin still had two years left in his term when he unexpectedly announced in June that he would step […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – MOSCOW, September 6, 2013) The six Moscow mayoral candidates entered their final 48 hours of campaigning on Thursday ahead of Sunday’s election, meeting with journalists, voters and competitors in order to press home their campaign messages and attempt to discredit their opponents. Anti-Kremlin protest leader Alexei Navalny and the Communists lashed out at President Vladimir […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Vladimir Goryachev and Oleg Sukhov – September 3, 2013) Mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny has voiced support for an economic amnesty and a windfall tax on some privatized assets at a high-profile meeting with businessmen and top executives, Vedomosti reported. The event was the first public meeting with entrepreneurs during Navalny’s campaign, with the previous ones […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 3, 2013) Driven by their hatred of Vladimir Putin as a personality and their lack of a place in today’s Russia, the liberal intelligentsia has been willing to overlook xenophobic, nationalist and even anti-Semitic remarks by Aleksey Navalny, even though such ugly comments would have ended the careers of Western politicians […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 5, 2013) The Moscow authorities have donated an office to a Russian human rights NGO, a source in the city administration told RIA Novosti Thursday, after it was evicted from its previous home in July. The For Human Rights movement’s new downtown office will be free of charge to the organization for 49 years, […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 30, 2013) A recent opinion poll has shown that only 15 percent of Russians think that Moscow is an attractive city to live in, while another 25 percent prefer small-town life. Some 60 percent of respondents said they could not see any “good qualities” in the average Muscovite, considered arrogant (19 percent), greedy (9 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – August 27, 2013) The Kremlin’s move to revive ambitious Luzhkov-era plan to build a gigantic circular highway 50 kilometers beyond the Moscow Ring Road is bringing to life the dreams of developers and nightmares of owners of property in its path. Construction of the Central Ring Road was first approved by federal […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 26, 2013) Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has slammed candidates for mayor of the Russian capital who “say that, generally speaking, Moscow is just a stage for them in trying to seize power in the country, to storm the Kremlin.” “I don’t think this trick will work. Neither you and I nor the Muscovites would put […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – August 27, 2013) Civil Platform leader Mikhail Prokhorov’s future seemed uncertain Monday as he denied a report that he would leave politics, while analysts said the billionaire may have indeed scaled down his political ambitions even as his party establishes itself ahead of regional elections. Some commentators argued that the tycoon’s refusal […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – August 26, 2013) Paying or coercing participants to come to rallies is an ongoing issue in the capital’s political sphere It’s a warm summer morning, and I’m standing with a disjointed cluster of about fifteen people outside Tretyakovskaya metro station. A young blonde woman dressed in grey sweatpants and a hoodie with dangling rabbit […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, RBTH – August 26, 2013) Kremlin ally faces convicted opposition leader Navalny after a date change rules out Prokhorov. A political contest for control of Europe’s largest city has become a fight between Kremlin-backed Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and opposition activist Alexei Navalny. The Sept. 8 election for mayor of Moscow will […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova and Ezekiel Pfeifer – August 23, 2013) The mayoral campaign of opposition leader Alexei Navalny faced a new wave of pressure by authorities Thursday as the Moscow Elections Commission warned he could be struck from the ballot and police raided a printer of his campaign materials. With just over two weeks left before […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – August 22, 2013) All illegal street markets will be closed in the Moscow region by the end of this year, acting Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said Wednesday as the campaign against illegal immigrants amid two key elections was gaining momentum. During debates on regional television on Tuesday, Vorobyov boasted a 15 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – August 22, 2013) Small business representatives called for equality before the law and less interference from the government, sharing their concerns with Moscow mayoral candidate teams at a round-table discussion organized by the For an Honest Market movement Wednesday. The meeting was attended by mayoral candidate Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – August 22, 2013) Standing on a soapbox, mayoral hopeful Alexei Navalny asks the people who’ve gathered to listen to his campaign speech near Timiryazevskaya railway station: “What do you know about me?” After a brief silence, someone in the crowd hesitatingly replies: “Corruption.” “What do you mean corruption? You mean I stole […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, August 20, 2013) The opinion poll data published by Moscow mayoral candidate (from the opposition RPR-Parnas party) Aleksey Navalnyy, which indicate that a second round is possible in the mayoral election on 8 September, do not reflect the real balance of forces and are dictated by the wish to influence voters, VTsIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Centre) […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – August 21, 2013) With Moscow about to vote for a new mayor this September, opposition blogger and candidate for the job Alexei Navalny is doing what he does best: exposing the sweet little earners that come from being well connected. In this case it is Anna Sobyanina, the daughter of Moscow’s incumbent mayor, Sergei […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – August 20, 2013) Groups of workers squatting on their haunches surrounded by piles of sand and broken tarmac is a common picture for downtown Moscow these days. But Muscovites can keep calm: this is not another 2 billion ruble effort by acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to replace asphalt with tiles on pavements […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, August 18, 2013) The decision of Moscow mayoral candidate Aleksey Navalnyy to not take part in debates on the Moskva Doveriye TV channel and the Moskva FM radio station can be described as a certain mistake, however he can use the time he saves to maximize contacts with voters on subjects that suit him, political analysts […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 19, 2013) Moscow mayor candidate Alexei Navalny said that he had spent 47 million rubles on the election campaign and that he asked his supporters to keep transferring money. “Over five weeks passed since the fundraising campaign began. You have given us over 49 million rubles during this time. Over 8,000 people donated to our election […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 19, 2013) The campaign staff of opposition activist, Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny has denied fund raising violations insinuated by the Interior Ministry. “Apparently, everything we have done is absolutely legal. They can do nothing but post a press release with scary words every Monday,” Navalny campaign staff head Leonid Volkov told Interfax on Monday. “The […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Anastasia Valeeva – August 16, 2013) Anastasia Valeeva is a Moscow-based journalist working at Public Television of Russia and doing her MA at the University of Siegen, Germany. The upcoming Moscow mayoral election is much in the news because one of the candidates, Alexei Navalny, is appealing against a prison sentence. Anastasia Valeeva gives a snapshot of some […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 19, 2013) Aleksey Navalny, despite his reputation for “politically incorrect” Russian nationalist statements, has now turned to Moscow’s non-Russian diasporas for a very simple reason: they form a minimum of 1.5 million of the city’s residents and cannot be ignored by anyone who hopes to win election there. Last week, the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 19, 2013) Opposition blogger Alexei Navalny has announced that he will not participate in the next rounds of mayoral debates, both televised and on the radio. The Navalny campaign criticized the decision by television channel Moskva-Doverie to air the debate at 8 a.m., Interfax reported. Last week Navalny, the RPR-Parnas candidate, participated in three […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 14, 2013) Muscovites are more xenophobic than are Russians living elsewhere in the Russian Federation, a pattern that means that Sergey Sobyanin’s appeal to such attitudes may help him in his race for mayor of the Russian capital, according to the director of the SOVA Analytic Center. In an article in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 16, 2013) The latest poll shows that support for acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin slid 11 percentage points, a substantial fall that accompanies better showings from his opponents in the upcoming mayoral election. A survey conducted by Synovate Comcon between Aug. 8 and 14 found that Sobyanin’s support fell from 74.6 percent to 63.5 percent […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Anna Lisovets, special to RBTH – August 14, 2013) Russian markets have plenty to offer to their customers – fresh produce, variety and encounters with different cultures. RBTH presents this essential guide to help you navigate the best marketplaces in Moscow. The markets of Moscow have recently become a familiar topic for discussion […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Stepan Kravchenko – August 14, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin has opened Moscow’s first detention camp for illegal immigrants as migrants become the main concern among voters preparing for the city’s first mayoral election since 2003. The tarpaulin tents for 600 people, surrounded by an eight-meter (26 feet) fence, signal the campaign for […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – August 15, 2013) Supporters of mayoral hopeful Alexei Navalny on Wednesday were struggling to find answers over an incident that took place Tuesday evening that saw police force their way into a central Moscow apartment to seize what they said were illegal campaign materials. In a statement released Wednesday, police explained the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Natalya Dzhanpoladova & Arslan Saidov – MOSCOW, August 14, 2013) According to a recent Levada Center poll, 40 percent of Muscovites believe the campaign for the city’s September 8 mayoral election will be “dirty, featuring slander, falsification, [and] abuse of administrative resources.” The events of the last couple of weeks seem to be proving them right, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 14, 2013) Sergei Sobyanin would have won the Moscow mayoral election in the first round with 67.4% of the vote if the election were held next Sunday, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said. The acting Moscow mayor is the best known candidate – 98% respondents in the VTsIOM telephone poll said they knew him. […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 14, 2013) Many in the Russian Federation and the West were shocked when European countries recently published figures showing that thousands of Russians are now seeking asylum or at least permanent residence abroad, but Russian realtors say that behind these numbers is an even more disturbing one. Ever more wealthy Russians […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Daniil Kotsyubinsky – August 13, 2013) Daniil Kotsyubinsky is a Russian historian and journalist based in St. Petersburg For the past month, Moscow has been following the fortunes of opposition leader Aleksey Navalny trial, imprisonment, implausible release and continuing Mayoral ambitions. But can all really be as it seems? Daniil Kotsyubinsky presents an alternative view. Moscow’s hot […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News. She also works as a playwright, her work featured at the Lyubimovka Festival in Moscow and Gogolfest in Kiev, Ukraine – August 13, 2013) The war on migrants in Moscow is being stepped up ahead of the September 8 mayoral election with a tent camp set up […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – August 14, 2013) All is fair in love and war – and in the Moscow mayoral race. As Navalny deals with accusations of receiving campaign funding from abroad, Sobyanin’s properties are the target of the opposition. The first major scandals of the Moscow mayoral campaign have erupted. The Prosecutor […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Maria Stambler – August 14, 2013) On September 8, Muscovites will head to the polling station to vote for the new mayor and between 53-55% have already decided to cast their vote for acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, according to the latest poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion. The poll was […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – August 13, 2013) A seven-story apartment complex on a quiet Moscow street just a five minute walk from the Cabinet building is widely known as the White House, not only thanks to the color of its facade. The house is reportedly home to high-profile government officials inhabiting vast apartments valued at millions […]
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(RFE/RL – Brian Whitmore – August 8, 2013) There’s just no escaping Aleksei Navalny. Whether one thinks he’s Russia’s greatest hope, or the most dangerous man in Russia, he is absolutely dominating the conversation right now. The ruling United Russia party is complaining about his online fundraising, as is Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Television personality Ksenia Sobchak is worried about his aggressive […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 6, 2013) The number of Moscow citizens intending to vote in the upcoming Moscow mayoral elections for Sergei Sobyanin is growing, while the share of those planning to support his main rival Alexei Navalny is decreasing, the research center of Superjob.ru portal said. “Over a half (53%) of those who have already decided on their votes […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – August 5, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. As the saying goes: ‘Russia has two misfortunes: the fools and the roads.’ Aleksei Navalny is just about still standing for election as Mayor of Moscow, but, […]
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