Election Victories Strengthen Putin’s Grip Around Russia and Crimea
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Version 0 of 1. MOSCOW — Candidates loyal to President Vladimir V. Putin appeared to be headed to overwhelming victories on Sunday in regional and local elections across Russia, according to preliminary results, including in Crimea, and the special district of Sevastopol, where the first voting was taking place since Russia’s invasion and annexation of the peninsula last spring. The voting for members of the regional Parliament in Crimea and for the Legislative Assembly in Sevastopol, a special municipal district where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has its headquarters, were intended to lacquer another coat of legitimacy on Russia’s absorption of the peninsula, which Ukraine and most countries in the world have refused to recognize. Candidates from United Russia, the party that nominated Mr. Putin for president and that controls majorities in both chambers of Russia’s national Parliament, received 70.4 percent of the votes in balloting for the regional Parliament in Crimea, according to an exit poll commissioned by KrymInform, a local news agency. Wide public support in Russia for the annexation of Crimea has sent Mr. Putin’s approval ratings skyrocketing to more than 85 percent, and that in turn has helped strongly lift candidates loyal to him in the regional and local elections on Sunday, in which voters chose the leaders of 30 of the country’s regions, and members of 14 regional legislatures. Opposition figures in Crimea and elsewhere said that the elections this year were also characterized by heavy-handed tactics intended to deny unapproved challengers any chance of gaining traction. In Crimea, some opposition figures said there had been heavy pressure for people to join the United Russia party, while the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic, Muslim minority group, had called for a boycott of the elections. Crimean Tatar leaders have accused the Russian authorities of rights abuses and a campaign of intimidation, including raids on at least four religious schools. Meanwhile, changes in election laws signed by Mr. Putin in February ended up knocking out a number of anti-Kremlin candidates who had hoped to run for the Moscow City Council, including several who were allied with Aleksei A. Navalny, the opposition leader. Mr. Navalny ran a surprisingly strong campaign for mayor last year but lost and has been under house arrest in connection with prosecutions largely viewed as political retribution. Among other changes, the law imposed stricter requirements for independent candidates to collect thousands of nominating signatures. This year’s heavy-handed tactics were in addition to the Kremlin’s customary domination of virtually all television media in Russia, and the enormous political and financial resources that are made available to candidates loyal to Mr. Putin’s government. The pressure also showed that Mr. Putin, given the unrest in neighboring Ukraine, was taking no chances, even at a time when nationalist fervor in Russia seems to be running high. Many of the governor’s races being decided on Sunday involved incumbents who were chosen by the Kremlin under a previous system of presidential appointments, and who resigned specifically to force early elections that they were heavily favored to win. After they resigned, Mr. Putin simply designated them to continue in an acting capacity until Sunday’s vote effectively confirmed and extended their terms in office. Sergei Neverov, a deputy speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, who is secretary of United Russia’s general council, declared victory on Sunday evening and credited Mr. Putin. “Preliminary results of the election indicate that an overwhelming majority of citizens have rallied around the Russian president in this campaign,” Mr. Neverov said, according to Russian news agencies. Among the incumbents who appeared to be cruising to easy victories, according to preliminary results, were the governors of Voronezh, Kursk, Ivanovo, Lipetsk and Kirov. In Crimea, only two other parties appeared to clear the minimum threshold to form a faction in Parliament: the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party with 9.3 percent of the vote, and the Communist Party with 6.6 percent, according to the exit poll. |