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The outcome of Sunday’s election for mayor of Moscow, and similar elections held in several other Russian cities, shows that the political landscape in Russia is changing. The protests of late 2011 and early 2012 are finally starting to deliver a positive legacy. The critics will of course say that the outcome in Moscow was predictable and nothing has changed. But they are wrong.
Sergei Sobyanin, the incumbent mayor and Sunday’s winner, had a real fight on his hands. He just about scrapped over the line to win the first round. More important, his principal challenger, the anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, won almost 30 per cent of the vote and has established himself as the de-facto opposition figurehead for a new generation of Russians. In several other locations, opposition candidates actually defeated the pro-Kremlin candidates. That was unheard of in previous elections."
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