Navalny, Kasparov Win Seats

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: October 24, 2012 (Issue # 1732)

MOSCOW — Well-known opposition figures like anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and former chess champion Garry Kasparov joined lower-profile personalities like former Kremlin G8 sherpa Andrei Illarionov and political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky in a new 45-member “shadow government,” according to election results released late Monday.

The online election, extended into a third day after hacker attacks disrupted voting, saw a turnout of 83 percent, the head of the shadow elections commission, Leonid Volkov, said on Twitter.

Of the 170,012 people who registered to vote, the identities of 97,727 were verified and 81,801 ended up voting, according to the elections commission’s website, cvk2012.org. Two hundred candidates ran for seats on the council.

The newly elected coordination council is an attempt by the opposition to organize into a united force capable of maintaining its momentum after a tumultuous 11 months that started with mass rallies after disputed State Duma elections in December. Those rallies prompted the Kremlin to promise political reform but also to pass a series of tough laws that have tightened the screws on protests and other initiatives that the Kremlin sees as challenging its legitimacy.

Navalny, with 43,723 votes, won the most support, and will sit on the council with socialite Ksenia Sobchak, Solidarity leader Ilya Yashin, environmentalist Yevgenia Chirikova, Parnas leader Boris Nemtsov, journalists Oleg Kashin and Olga Romanova, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, and recently ousted State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov and his son, Duma Deputy Dmitry Gudkov.