Stability Reaffirmed

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - Report 04 Oct 2013 by Alexey Dolinskiy

Sergei Sobyanin won the Moscow Mayor’s election but ensured a small voter turnout and voter support for himself only marginally higher than 50%. That may make his position in the elite hierarchy become less prominent. His main opponent Alexey Navalny won over a quarter of all votes despite having no access to major media. That result may be the limit of his electoral attractiveness at this stage. However, he proved he is able to consolidate protest voting which used to be a major source of communists’ electoral support.

Municipal elections may be the only level where opposition has significant chances to compete with the ruling elite on equal or almost equal terms. That was clearly demonstrated at regional elections taking place almost nationwide in September when no political forces managed to endanger Kremlin-supported incumbents in governors’ positions or local legislatures.

The mastermind of Russia’s political system Vladislav Surkov returned to the Kremlin as a Presidential Aide responsible for relations with South Ossetiya and Abkhazia. That is an indication of the Kremlin’s decision to become more active in that domain.

Russians believe they spend too much time online as 48% of daily Internet users say they use it too often. 34% of them believe they spend too much time in online social networks and 23% believe they spend too much time with emails.

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