Mass apathy and a scarcity of serious challengers to state-preferred candidates were the recurrent themes of Russia's nationwide voting day on Sunday, which pundits said attested to the Kremlin's tightening grip on all levels of the Russian electoral system.
Voters in 84 of the country's 85 federal subjects were summoned to some 64,000 polling stations to elect 30 regional governors, 14 regional and 21 municipal legislatures, as well as other forms of regional authority. But the scale of the exercise did not match the population's lackluster enthusiasm for Sunday's events, which has been molded by two decades of electoral rigging and the stifling of political alternatives, according to independent observers.
Members of the opposition have accused President Vladimir Putin of constricting the country's electoral system by creating a facade of openness, which they say has contributed to a consolidation of the Kremlin's control over regional and local politics.
In 2012, Putin reinstated direct gubernatorial elections, after having initially banned them in 2004.
Last year, Putin signed legislation vesting regions with the right to choose whether to elect their governors directly, or to let regional legislatures pick from a list of Kremlin-approved candidates.
The vast majority of those registered to vote in Moscow's City Duma elections, in fact, snubbed Sunday's poll. As of 3 p.m., the turnout was nearly 13 percent. Dmitry Oreshkin, the head of the Merkator research group, which monitors regional Russian politics, told The Moscow Times on Sunday that the turnout would be unlikely to exceed 15 to 20 percent by close of polling stations at 8 p.m.
INC News, 14/09/2014
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