No surprise as Kremlin records clean sweep in weekend’s regional elections

Kremlin-backed candidates have secured victory in all 20 Russian regions where gubernatorial elections were held over the weekend, Russian Election Monitor (REM), a European transparency initiative, reported on Monday.

In 19 of the 20 regions where elections were held, the winners were candidates of the ruling United Russia party. In the Volga region republic of Chuvashia, independent incumbent Oleg Nikolaev, who is seen as Kremlin-compliant and was not up against a United Russia candidate, was re-elected, REM added. All 20 governors were incumbents.

According to results published by the Central Election Commission, United Russia also won parliamentary elections in each of the 11 federal subjects choosing new regional legislatures.

The three-day voting period, which began in Russia on Friday, saw 20 regions and the city of Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea elect governors, 11 regions choosing new regional legislatures and 25 regions selecting local councils. In total, over 5,000 elections and local referendums were held.

Some 2,541 candidates with criminal records appeared on ballots, whose convictions included theft, fraud, hooliganism, drunk driving, and violent crimes, according to Elections in Details, a Russian election monitoring group.

Russian Election Monitor said that the use of remote electronic voting in the weekend’s elections would also remove all public oversight of electronic vote counts by preventing voters from verifying how their ballots were counted and eliminating the possibility of a paper-based recount.

With trust in the electoral process already low, independent election analyst Ivan Shukshin said on Saturday that early voting figures had revealed what he believed to be inflated turnout figures in at least five Russian regions.