INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has won his third term in office by a sweeping margin following a relatively muted wartime campaign, poll
mayorwrote on his personal website as his rivals from four systemic opposition parties squeaked in with only single-digit percentages of the
vote.Leonid Zyuganov, the grandson of veteran Communist Party (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov, finished a distant second with 8.11% of the
votes.Boris Chernyshov from the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and Vladislav Davankov from the center-right New People party
despite being a veteran member of the ruling party.But following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has demanded firmer loyalty from
saying more than 2.7 million Muscovites cast their ballots through an online portal.Yet the election was marred by reports of voter
intimidation and procedural violations, as well as criticism of the online voting system's lack of transparency and the absence of any real
March 2024 presidential election in which Putin is widely expected to seek re-election for a fifth overall term.
