MOSCOW—Candidates loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin swept regional and local elections over the weekend, demonstrating the Kremlin’s grip on the levers of power despite pockets of support for Alexei Navalny’s opposition movement after an attempt on his life sidelined him last month.
Preliminary results published by state news agencies Monday showed broad support for the pro-Putin United Russia party. Political analysts said the Covid-19 pandemic and an economic shock prompted by accompanying lockdowns and a slump in oil prices produced a clamor for stability, playing to one of Mr. Putin’s core strengths over his 20 years in power, and undermining support for change.
“After the shocks of the first half of 2020, voters want stability and calm, trusting tried and true candidates,” said Valery Fyodorov, head of Moscow-based pollster WCIOM, which names the Russian government among its top clients, on the organization’s Telegram channel. “There was almost no hope for new (political) forces.”
The contests serve as a bellwether for Russian politics ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections. They indicate that the opposition may struggle to make significant inroads despite the government’s own patchy record in handling the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and a slide in living standards.
Opposition candidates did, however, win important symbolic victories. In the Siberian city of Tomsk, where Mr. Navalny was poisoned with what German doctors say was a military-grade nerve agent, candidates aligned with his movement won control of the city council, said Leonid Volkov, another of Mr. Navalny’s allies. State agencies didn’t provide names of individual winners.