Change in Moscow Could Prompt Change in Russia

Vladimir Kara Murza
31 May 2012
Muscovites have traditionally had an outsize influence on Russian politics. Be it the Soviet legislative elections of 1989, the resistance to the Communist coup attempt in 1991, or the mass anti-Putin protests of 2011 and 2012—what happens in the capital has significant consequences around the country. In its voting behavior, Moscow has long been the Kremlin’s headache.

In March 1989, opposition leader Boris Yeltsin made a spectacular political comeback with his 89-percent victory here over the Communist candidate. In the parliamentary vote of 1999, then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s Unity party (now known as United Russia) won a humiliating 7 percent in Moscow, losing heavily to the opposition center-left Fatherland bloc. Both in 2000 and in 2012—even according to the official results—an overall majority of Muscovites voted against Putin in presidential elections.......

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