Voters across Russia go to the polls this Sunday, with multiple seats up for grabs in local parliaments and executive bodies. Most attention is on the Moscow council vote, which was plagued by opposition rallies in recent weeks.
Polling stations opened up on Sunday morning in the European part of Russia, Siberia, Crimea and the Far East, allowing people to vote for municipal council members, mayors and governors in the much-anticipated 2019 local elections.
Although voting incorporates as many as 85 regions and cities, the most closely watched race is in Moscow, where voters will elect the 45-seat legislature that will run the capital during the next five years.
The vote in Moscow comes on the heels of opposition to the contentious procedure, after election officials had disqualified numerous independent candidates, for misdeeds such as failing to declare overseas properties and for presenting signatures of deceased or non-existent voters in order to achieve eligibility to appear on the ballot papers.
The ban saw tens of thousands of Muscovites join sanctioned and unsanctioned protests, which have been taking place almost every weekend since the disqualifications. Some of the rallies had not been previously agreed with city authorities and ended up in clashes.
Police made over 2,000 detentions during unauthorized protests in late July and early August, according to the Interior Ministry and NGO figures. Most of the detainees were promptly released, but a number of them were charged with attacking officers and disrupting public safety.
Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies have been put on alert on Sunday to provide security during the vote; the entire process proceeded calmly, with, at the time of writing, no scuffles reported in Moscow or other locations.
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