(The Print) Russian voters are looking beyond President Putin and Putinism for solutions to everyday problems. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party, United Russia, eked out a majority in the Moscow municipal legislature in elections on Sept. 8.
While Putin’s regime touted the outcome as a victory, the election posed a significant challenge to what is called Putinism, a system that emerged in Putin’s second term to reassert Kremlin control over Russian politics. It included the creation of a dominant party, United Russia, in 2001, and the centralization of political power in the Kremlin. […]
While Smart Vote did not increase turnout, it influenced the election’s outcome. Putin’s party may still have won a majority, but it lost a lot of races.
Anticipating popular backlash against United Russia, party candidates threw off the label and ran as independents. Despite this ploy, the party lost 15 of its 40 seats. Voters ousted high-profile candidates such as Andrey Meletsky, the chairman of the Moscow United Russia Organization. […]
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