Incumbent governors backed by President Vladimir Putin avoided runoff elections in 16 Russian regions Sunday, one year after Putin replaced at least 15 governors as a result of 2018 election setbacks. The governors’ races lacked the high stakes of Moscow’s legislative elections, where pro-Putin candidates lost one-third of the seats following a summer of the biggest protests in nearly a decade.

Acting or incumbent governors in 15 regions and St. Petersburg received between 56% and nearly 90% of the votes, with almost all the ballots counted as of Monday afternoon. Alexander Osipov won by the largest majority, 89.61%, in Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region. In the republic of Kalmykia, ex-kickboxing champion Batu Khasikov received 82.57% of votes. Valery Limarenko in the Sakhalin region and Oleg Khorokhordin in the republic of Altai had the lowest margins of victory, with 56.15% and 58.82% respectively. Alexander Beglov, the acting governor of St. Petersburg, came in fifth at 64.47% following a controversial campaign. The ruling United Russia party, which supports Putin, saw mixed success in the 13 regional legislative assembly and three mayoral races, as well as four special elections to the State Duma. The far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) kept its hold on the Far Eastern Khabarovsk region’s assembly by routing United Russia and electing one of its members to the State Duma. Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk re-elected its Communist Party incumbent, Mayor Anatoly Lokot. Alleged violations St. Petersburg’s city council race was marred by multiple claims of fraud, including ballot-stuffing and a multiple voting tactic known as “carousel.” The St. Petersburg-based Bumaga news website reported that monitors tailed at least two cars with hundreds of ballots allegedly inside. The outlet reported that at least 15 election monitors were expelled and three monitors were attacked before precincts opened.

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The Meduza news website noted two “strange bumps” in St. Petersburg’s turnout numbers Sunday. The Kommersant business daily said it saw people posing as pollsters offering money to those who voted for “the correct” candidates. Elsewhere, a group of armed people on horseback reportedly shot at a bus full of election monitors and journalists on the border between Siberia’s Krasnoyarsk region and the republic of Tyva. A regional police chief was cited as saying that no bullet holes were seen on the bus other than its two punctured front tires. Russia’s elections chief Ella Pamfilova said Monday that police received 3,654 complaints of voting irregularities across the country. Authorities have opened 11 criminal cases over possible violations, Pamfilova added. The Golos election-monitoring NGO has registered 2,019 violations throughout the country. ‘Smart Vote’ The Moscow city council vote was one of the most closely watched local elections in years after the exclusion of many opposition candidates triggered the Russian capital's biggest protests in nearly a decade. The United Russia party lost a slew of seats in the Moscow parliament Sunday, suggesting a tactical voting strategy pushed by opponents may have worked. United Russia’s Moscow candidates rebranded as independents in an apparent effort to distance themselves from the party — whose popularity is at a decade low — a tactic that appears not to have paid off.