MOSCOW/TOMSK: Russians went to the polls on Sunday in local elections being scrutinised for signs of discontent with the ruling United Russia party following the suspected poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.
Navalny, 44, had urged Russians to vote tactically against the ruling party in a bid to undermine its tight grip on power before he fell gravely ill in what Germany and his allies say was an attempt to kill him last month.
United Russia, which backs President Vladimir Putin, dominates politics across 11 time zones, but the elections come at a time of public frustration over years of falling wages and the government's handling of the pandemic.
The regional polls, which will elect 18 governors and an array of local parliaments, city councils and municipal bodies, are seen as a dry run for next September's parliamentary elections.
Navalny's team has fielded dozens of candidates at elections for the city councils of Novosibirsk, Russia's third biggest city by population, and Tomsk, a student town of around half a million people.
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