(VOA) MOSCOW – Russian voters handed setbacks to Kremlin-affiliated candidates in Moscow and other local elections nationwide — losses that came despite a near total ban on opposition candidates that sparked a summer of street protests and mass arrests in the capital.
With most of the vote counted, returns showed pro-Kremlin candidates lost over a third of seats in the race for Moscow’s city council — suggesting a plan by the opposition to consolidate votes around targeted opponents of the Kremlin had been relatively successful. […]
“I went and Smart Voted. What could be more repulsive?” asked Konstantin Sonin, a leading Russian economist, in a post to Facebook where he detailed his vote for a communist candidate. “Voting for him, I voted “against all” — against everyone who ruined the Moscow elections.”
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