MOSCOW: Incumbent Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin won elections in the Russian capital with over 51 percent of the vote, narrowly avoiding the need for a run-off after a strong showing by protest leader Alexei Navalny, an almost complete vote count said Monday.
Sobyanin won 51.32 percent of the vote and Navalny 27.27 percent, the Moscow election commission said, in a count based on 99.6 percent of polling stations reporting.
Navalny has already expressed doubt over the validity of the results, claiming to have pushed Sobyanin to a second round and warning of street protests.
In the other key battle in nationwide local elections Sunday, anti-drugs campaigner and opposition activist Yevgeny Roizman defeated the candidate of the ruling United Russia Party in the battle for mayor of Russia's fourth largest city Yekaterinburg.
After a bitterly-contested poll, Roizman won 30.11 percent of the vote and pro-Kremlin Yakov Silin 26.48 percent, the local election commission said.
Unlike in Moscow, there was no possibility of a second round, meaning the candidate with the most votes becomes mayor.
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