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Putin Critic Trails in Moscow Race, Exit Polls Show Challenger in Race for Moscow Mayor Says He Can Force a Runoff
(about 5 hours later)
MOSCOW — Exit polls for the first mayoral election here in a decade on Sunday showed that the incumbent had narrowly won the race, but his main challenger, one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s most prominent critics, claimed he had won enough votes to have forced a second round. MOSCOW — The first mayoral election here in a decade ended with a narrow victory for the appointed incumbent on Sunday, according to preliminary results. But his main challenger, one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s most prominent critics, claimed that he had won enough votes to force a runoff, and he warned of efforts to falsify the outcome of a race that proved to be much closer than expected.
The initial results — not yet verifiable — laid the groundwork for a disputed outcome in an election that had been widely viewed as an unusually competitive test of Mr. Putin’s power and popularity after mass protests in 2011 and 2012 over the state of democracy in Russia. The election was widely seen as an unusually competitive test of Mr. Putin’s power, following mass protests in 2011 and 2012 over the conduct of national elections, including Mr. Putin’s third campaign for the presidency.
Sergei S. Sobyanin, the incumbent and Kremlin insider who was appointed mayor in 2010 after direct elections for the post had been abolished by Mr. Putin, appeared headed to a victory and a new five-year term. However, as polls closed at 8 p.m., Aleksei A. Navalny, the charismatic lawyer, blogger and opposition leader, cited exit polls showing that Mr. Sobyanin had won less than the minimum needed to avoid a runoff. Sergei S. Sobyanin, the incumbent and Kremlin insider who was appointed mayor in 2010, appeared headed to a new five-year term, though hardly with a thunderous endorsement from voters, given his overwhelming advantages in the race.
“All the data from the exit polls that we have indisputably show there will be a second round in these elections,” Mr. Navalny said, adding that he had received 35 percent of the vote, compared with 46 percent for Mr. Sobyanin. Other exit polls, also not yet confirmed, suggested that Mr. Sobyanin had exceeded the 50 percent minimum needed to assure a first-round victory. Mr. Navalny’s remarks appeared to lay the groundwork for challenging the outcome, which could lead to more popular unrest. Moments after the polls closed Sunday night, Aleksei A. Navalny, the charismatic lawyer and blogger who has emerged as a potent opposition leader, said that his campaign’s exit polling indicated that Mr. Sobyanin had won fewer votes than the 50 percent needed to prevent a runoff.
“We are absolutely sure of the exact number, and we call on the Moscow mayor’s office not to take any steps in the direction of organizing falsification,” he said. “And we understand perfectly that they have a great temptation to give themselves something like 8 to 10 percent of the votes and create a victory for themselves in the first round.” With 76 percent of the ballots counted early Monday, according to official results, Mr. Sobyanin’s tally hovered just above 51 percent. Mr. Navalny was running second with 27 percent, followed by the Communist Party’s candidate, Ivan I. Melnikov, who received 10 percent. Three other candidates received around 3 percent each.
Other polls suggested that Mr. Sobyanin had received just over 50 percent, and Mr. Navalny about 30 percent. Official results were not expected until late Sunday night, and the final tally might not be completed until Monday. Mr. Navalny, who used the race as a forum to challenge Mr. Putin’s authority, said Sunday night that the Kremlin now faced a crossroads. Mr. Navalny said his campaign’s polling indicated that he had won 35 percent, compared with about 46 percent for Mr. Sobyanin, depriving him of an outright victory. “All the data from the exit polls that we have indisputably show there will be a second round in these elections,” Mr. Navalny said at his campaign headquarters. He appeared again early on Monday and declared that if a second round were not held, he would call on Muscovites to protest.
“I think that Sobyanin and his main voter, Putin, at this exact moment are deciding whether to hold a comparatively fair count or not,” he said. “We will appear to city residents and we will call on them to come into the streets,” he said.
Mr. Sobyanin’s campaign manager, Lyudmila I. Shvetsova, left open the possibility of a second round in the first official reaction to the vote. She said the vote had accomplished Mr. Sobyanin’s goal of presiding over an election seen as fair. “We can say absolutely certainly and with absolute conviction, that the main goal, which stood before these elections, was achieved,” she said, according to the Interfax news agency. “And it is connected with the fact that we can show ourselves, and Russia and the world that we can carry out democratic, fair elections.” Regardless of the final outcome, Mr. Navalny, who is 37, defied expectations for Russia’s beleaguered democratic opposition. Although Mr. Putin faces no imminent threat to his power, the election showed that his prolonged rule as the undisputed authority here has generated a significant amount of discontent, at least in the nation’s political and economic capital. A challenge of the results by Mr. Navalny could lead to more popular unrest; he has already scheduled a rally in Moscow on Monday.
Apathy was clearly evident after a day of voting in Moscow and in regions across the country. Turnout was abysmally low for races almost everywhere, underscoring the disillusion that Mr. Putin’s critics say is the byproduct of the sclerotic political system he has created. One exception to the low turnout was Chechnya, the republic in southern Russia that endured two civil wars and is now run as a fief by its leader, Ramzan Kadyrov. In the last presidential election, 99.8 percent of its voters were reported to have supported Mr. Putin. Mr. Navalny, whose support in polls a few weeks ago was only in the single digits, managed through a short, intense campaign to win a greater share of the vote than any other opposition figure has managed in a major election since Mr. Putin rose to power in 1999. He did so by mounting what was for Russia a novel kind of grass roots insurgency, stumping for votes on the streets and raising money online, where he first rose to prominence by crusading against pervasive corruption in government and business.
As the scant turnout in Moscow became clear on a cool, gray day, Mr. Navalny implored supporters to vote and encourage others to do so. “If you voted already, then pick up the phone and make sure that two or three of your friends also come and vote,” he wrote on a blog on the Web site of the radio station Ekho Moskvy at 5 p.m. when turnout was still below 20 percent. “If you’ve exhausted your telephone calls, then go to the apartment building around you and knock on doors.” Mr. Sobyanin appeared briefly after midnight and spoke to supporters who gathered, pointedly, in Bolotnaya Square, the plaza near the Kremlin that was the focal point of the protests in 2011 and 2012. “These were the most competitive, most fair, most open elections in the history of Moscow,” he declared, as confetti showered a crowd estimated at a few thousand. He stopped short of declaring victory, but said, “I am sure that in the end we will win.”
In race after race, incumbents cruised to victory. Only in one election, the mayor’s race in Yekaterinburg, did an opposition candidate appear to be leading, according to early results. There were also elections across Russia on Sunday for seven governors, eight mayors of regional capitals and 16 regional legislatures. Only in one other race, for mayor of Yekaterinburg, did an opposition candidate mount a significant challenge to the Kremlin’s candidate; that race remained too close to call early on Monday.
“It’s awful,” said a retired chemist who joined a trickle of voters at a schoolhouse on Lenin Prospect in Moscow. She gave only her first name and patronymic, Nona Georgievna. “This is a disaster. These are not elections — only the devil knows what to call this.” She voted for Mr. Navalny, she said, but did so with a sense of resignation. Turnout was extremely low almost everywhere, with only about one-third of registered voters in Moscow casting ballots, underscoring the disillusionment many Russians feel with politics.
“I don’t believe anything will change,” she said, “until Putin is replaced.” As the scant turnout in Moscow became clear, Mr. Navalny implored his supporters to vote, and encourage others to do so as well. “If you voted already, then pick up the phone and make sure that two or three of your friends also come and vote,” he wrote on a radio station’s blog at 5 p.m. “If you’ve exhausted your telephone calls, then go to the apartment building around you and knock on doors.”
The elections on Sunday, the first since the disputed votes in 2011 and 2012, emerged as a test for Mr. Putin, though he was not on the ballot. If Mr. Sobyanin emerges as the winner, the Kremlin appears to face no significant political challenge at the ballot box for years to come. In addition to the mayor’s race in Moscow, voters elected seven governors, eight mayors of regional capitals and the members of 16 regional legislatures. Mr. Navalny made the election a sort of referendum on Mr. Putin. But the Kremlin now faces no significant challenge at the ballot box for years to come. The next national elections are not scheduled until 2016.
The Moscow election was the most prominent because of the city’s dominant role as Russia’s economic and political capital. The next regional or national elections of the same order of significance are not scheduled until 2016, when the national parliamentary elections will be held. “It’s awful,” said a retired chemist who joined a trickle of voters at a schoolhouse on Lenin Prospect in Moscow. She gave only her first name and patronymic, Nona Georgievna. “This is a disaster. These are not elections — only the devil knows what to call this.” She said she voted for Mr. Navalny, but with a sense of resignation: “I don’t believe anything will change until Putin is replaced.”
The decision to allow Mr. Navalny to run reflected the divisions in Mr. Putin’s inner circle over the course of elections in Russia, including the extent to which the authorities would allow meaningful competition and a measure of fairness. Mr. Navalny registered as a candidate only days before he was convicted of embezzlement in a trial that was widely denounced as a farce — and then he was stunningly released on appeal the next day. The decision to allow Mr. Navalny to run reflected divisions among Mr. Putin’s closest advisers over the extent to which they would tolerate competition in elections. After he registered as a candidate in July, Mr. Navalny was convicted of embezzlement in a trial that was widely denounced as rigged, only to be released on appeal the next day.
Many analysts argued that allowing Mr. Navalny’s candidacy was merely a token gesture to create the appearance of a fairer process — perhaps intended to temper international criticism ahead of the Olympic Games in Sochi and Russia’s hosting of the Group of 8 nations next year — or to add legitimacy to Mr. Sobyanin’s position. At a minimum, Mr. Navalny appeared to have succeeded in establishing himself as a new kind of political opponent here, though his appeal could be decided at any moment and he could be ordered to begin serving the five-year sentence he was given in July.
For supporters of Mr. Navalny, many of them young, educated and politically active, the question now will be how to sustain the energy and organization that his candidacy created. He recruited more than 14,000 volunteers and campaigned energetically around Moscow, though he was barred from state television networks, which lavished coverage on Mr. Sobyanin. “Maybe he will be put into prison,” said Maksim Grachyov, a 25-year-old programmer who voted for Mr. Navalny, “but he managed to wake up people during the stagnation, when we had no alternative for many years.”
Valentine Gorbunov, chairman of the Moscow City election commission, said votes should not be held in September, the waning days of the summer when many people spend their weekends at their dachas. “There is the harvesting— apples, potatoes,” he said, according to Interfax. He also criticized the elimination of absentee balloting and early voting, steps that had been taken to avoid some of the electoral manipulation that marred previous elections. Many analysts argued that allowing Mr. Navalny’s candidacy was merely a token gesture by the Kremlin to create the appearance of a fairer process or to add legitimacy to Mr. Sobyanin’s standing as one of the most prominent elected officials beneath Mr. Putin.
A prominent novelist and opposition leader, Grigory Chkhartishvili, whose pen name is Boris Akunin, lamented the state of the opposition as reflected in the turnout in Moscow, the center of the opposition to Mr. Putin’s authority. Mr. Navalny’s supporters, many of them young and educated, now face the question of how to sustain the energy his candidacy created. Some lamented the low turnout and the depth of apathy.
“The turnout is shamefully low right now,” Mr. Akunin wrote on his Facebook account. “A bad thought occurred to me: Maybe this serves us right? We get what we deserve?” Grigory Chkhartishvili, a novelist and opposition leader who writes under the name Boris Akunin, wrote in a posting on Facebook: “A bad thought occurred to me: maybe this serves us right? We get what we deserve?”

 Reporting was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn, Andrew Roth, Noah Sneider, Viktor Klimenko and Sophia Kishkovsky.

Reporting was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn, Andrew Roth, Noah Sneider, Viktor Klimenko and Sophia Kishkovsky.