Streets over the summer in russia after some of the kremlins fiercest critics were barred from a regional ballot but despite moscows attempt to silence them the ruling party lost a 3rd of its seats in the capital in sundays local election president Vladimir Putins united russia still holds a majority but the Opposition Communist Party has almost doubled its number of seats so what does this mean for the National Elections in 2 years time is putin beginning to lose his popularity will be speaking to our guests in a moment but 1st step fasten has more from moscow. Pretty interesting developments here in moscow and also a politically complicated scheme that has played out for sure united russia the ruling party of lattimer put in has lost more seats here in moscow than ever before but on the other hand they still have a majority so its more like a psychological loss for a party that is simply not used to losing and has been having a monopoly position here in the city duma for such a long time and has been in power in russia for such a long time on the other hand it doesnt mean that now theres an independent opposition in the city duma because they were simply banned from running in these elections and the opposition has then called for this socalled smart fold voting for anyone basically who can be united russia and this has now resulted in a win for the communist party who has never been a Real Opposition Party so its not likely to change much of the policies but it does give a strong signal to president putin and the ruling party that their power base is kind of shaky right now and that the opposition cant be ignored and crushed that easily anymore step 5 aljazeera inside story. I. Already lets bring in our panel joining us from moscow victor or gave it a lead expert at the moscow based think tank center for actual politics from kiev on skype illya. Founder of the Political Movement left front and former member of parliament from 2007 to 2016 and from london and my fear of a visiting Senior Research fellow at Kings College london welcome to the program and i want to start with you these elections and the outcome how significant is this development. They are significant foremost because this is the 1st time since the ninetys figures associated with sort of liberal democratic opposition had some kind of electoral success but it is not significant in terms of Political Party development because they still dont have any kind of organized vehicle to press their demands but they quiet a platform their quiet voice theyve for the 1st time showed that they are electable but the balance of power is clearly not in their favor also we should not extrapolate what has happened in moscow told the rest of the country which lives in quite different universe victor is this a wake up call for Vladimir Putin and if so how big of a wakeup call is it. Well of course its a wake up call for the russian political system. Has correctly pointed out that. Actually the early to thousands liberal parties have not been represented in the state duma and the is also the elections of the Moscow City Council the socalled moscow city duma. Went a bit differently from what the. Program in the United Russia Party. Had expected or. Ones that show that there is a possibility of growing possibility of a growing sense that in 2021 in the Upcoming Elections to the russian duma the Russian Parliament there could possibly again be liberal members of Parliament Representatives of liberal party. Included so so these. Elections that have just just and that they are showing a growing frustration on the part of voters and not just in moscow i would remind you that in the far east for example in about a scary june the liberal Democratic Party of russia which is one the elementary part is he had significant significantly over the United Russia Party and the effect in the election to the Moscow City Council a number of united russia members had. Shown themselves to be a sort of title independent so they ran as independents instead of united russia members of parliament because they thought that their Party Affiliation might negatively impact their. Chances so it is possible that in the next months think the elections for the state duma. United russia could possibly morph into something. Different political that could be significant changes to united russia there could be. More flexibility shown on the part of the kremlin and possibly there could be more alliances 1 between parliamentary factions with united russia in the coming months just how powerful is the city duma were talking about this specific election and also how effective can the opposition be now. You see if we are talking about always call wait. Very much its because of what have just happened firstly unite with russia and you run the light russia they were almost in the as an independent but nevertheless when understand that the sea life with russia they still control the majority over this. They can form a 60 percent of the seats just before they will control a 100 percent of the seats knowledge 60 so its a significant change but still they control the measures but the other most. Rule is the really strange institutional most always at the same time is the sea and the regional affordance of the russian constitution and thats why the governing instruments even in the city there extremely limited and theyre very much controlled by most City Councils by the mayor sources thats why this meeting has a lot of symbolic. Because we will see independence through the in the pound them into the not so much of them but the problem. Into those but we will not see any changes in terms of political structure of the country and how did the kremlin backed candidates do in the rest of the country basically to have done something that well because. The acting governors those governments who have been in power for a long time they all have been elected so nobody has been seriously challenged we do not even have the 2nd round because they were expect a show that they will be a more come to station them in some. Of federal regions we will have a 2nd round of government go but not or elections we dont even have that thats where the real power lies and thats the level which really matter for Decision Making structure. Yes we have seen united thrushes being a little bit sheepish like and mosco. Pretty much. Appreciating it and accepting that its not really doing very well with the electorate but we also have to say though by and large people are not very active all the president ial elections matter and then you have a real turnout in moscow city here we have less than 20 of top percent in the rest of the well in the country overall 41 percent voted so it shows that its not something which people feel can actually change their life which is tremendously relevant but overall the authorities have enough argument to be able to claim that they have one of the selections opposition of the same time can also claim that they have made significant gains so both sides sort of have legitime of the grounds to be optimistic and satisfied with the outcomes illya is is what happened in moscow the outcome is it the outcome of of a strategy by opposition who called on people to vote strategically or is this simply a reflection of the reality on the ground and more of a referendum on putin and united russia when it comes to the results in moscow. I think its an objective situation way more than anything now. You see the tradition is that which in this really losing its grounds he spotty even more so. Will raising sleep for the current Approval Rating is around these 4 united russia 25 percent so we were stunned that and that was actually the reason why was not the light that russia was money laid to the king to the foremost seat to council but the around this and but at the at the other peoples too dont see that or much here we actually use your. Liberal courses we would be more correct to run them as you liberal forces that must be. Russia and even then most of the biggest. Supporter base to tell of get. The majority of the humans with the free elections. Those always go forces which can present the ultimate chip which in their you either leftist and the majority or those. Tend to the school. The elections and last. Month the related by the want to many people say the additional of their right then look the real opposition but nevertheless thats what people would like to vote for and there is no such organized true up as you show in the country victor as you heard elite speak very talk about united russia becoming more and more unpopular what about putin. Well formally put is not out of united russia he is not a member of the party and so if the party eventually has to morph into a somewhat different Political Movement or if it has for political purposes to form coalitions with other parliamentary parties in order to keep the political system. Along the same course that will not significantly affect his future or his Political Capital that he has built however the general frustration on the part of the population with with the pension reform with a number of other issues with Economic Issues that have popped up in the months and years of course they are going to negatively affect the electoral chances of united russia or other parliamentary parties possibly in the future and the means to be seen how that is going to be dealt with what the more flexibility the kremlin shows in itself policy the more stable the situation is i would also i also would like to know if the the Regional Elections many of the governors that were just elected. That were just elected them yesterday were actually elected for the 1st time whether its. Origin and. In the far east. And youll be appointed by putin because the kremlin actually keeps tabs on the governors that show low ratings and when the governor is in the low rating category for a long time usually the governor of that agent gets sacked very quickly and gets replaced by another governor and we have seen this in the number in the significant number of regions in the last 7. Months and most of these governors one. Easily. The exception would probably be attacks on the bigelf in St Petersburg who had more difficult election and. One of the baathist challengers a filmmaker to get out of the election to make it in a way this made his election easier and the results are still being counted but overall i would agree with. That with the governor elections united russia short very good results at this point and it looked like you were nodding to some of what victor was saying did you want to add something. Yes i would like to the old out what those that are marketable opposed to most collections one lot actually have the results because with their 3 in though what this newly elected deputies are going to do with their power but that the city authorities mellish to create such a big issue out of they complain burning and having pushback from the street and provoking people or more protest action which they otherwise would have taken further the capacity of the authorities to panic and see the problem where there is really not much a win this year that some more dangerous thing that the we have seen pretty tame elections and most go fairly orderly but we have. A really if that it will apply a behavior come pain before totally disproportionate Security Response felt tells us more us about how the us thought it is really feel and what their confidence level is like. Analysts have said that the kremlin was reluctant to allow alexina vollies the prominent opposition politician of course to allow his allies a way to gain more power ahead of far more significant parliamentary polls that will happen in 2021 with the loss of these seats in moscow what does that mean for the opposition Going Forward into the 2021 elections. Well in most elections there were several different president ial groups that were quite interesting a place that was. Associated with them all as you correctly say that was possible. From the feel of the. Other basically with criminal law they allowed on the ridge just. Want to double. Time political left her own father to. Sure originates the you know flight to the surface of the most economists what do you mean keep what they want and they want more seats in. All the other tenses us that we are right now cheer as the come thing that the opposition into the most wholesome woman in the by the clintons. By would say that i was seeing the holiday or bill for the 2 others in the support of the woman this was just what they saw the lesser evil. White the hole in their support for those guys but they actually both think that being the parliament they behave like. Really opposition leaders must be a mighty russia the psychological loyalty lies russia thinks with the victor Vladimir Putins president ial term ends in 2024 i mean there are constitutional term limits in russia but there are many in russia who believe that he will find a way or is looking for a way to hold on to power beyond that either by a constitutional amendment or by perhaps the creation of a special position in parliament what do you think is that something we could see happen. Putin is definitely not looking to remain in his position as president of russia after 2024 but there may be a role for him in the russian political system and remains to be seen what the russian political system is going to look like in 2024 thats a long time 5 years from now considering the fluctuations that we have been seeing in recent. Times in the russian political sphere in the russian political political arena much can still happen before then and the way that that order the new political order. Is going to were going to see that happen in the next few years a lot of that is going to have to do with how the actions of 2021 states duma the parliamentary elections in russia turn out thats definitely going to have an impact and its still there is still a long time to go i would also theres also a name that has not been mentioned. Here yet. In connection to the elections that have just happened and thats the name of the mayor of moscow he said daniel who is. A loser in this. Election cycle because much of the blame for whats happened with united russia and its campaign for the Moscow City Council lies with the Moscow City Electoral Commission the. Decisions that negatively impacted on one united russia which caused disenfranchisement feelings of disenfranchisement on the part of a significant portion of the moscow voters. And so the kremlin. Is well aware of what happened with the Moscow City Election Commission now. And the political ambitions of mr. Gagnon could very well be curtailed as a result of this and there were many protests in moscow this past summer because of the discontent that opposition politicians looking to get on the ballot were disqualified and were able to run in the election of course there was anger at how the authorities dealt with those protests did that feed in from your Vantage Point into the results of the election to some extent a yes a because of those people who are would have voted for this kind of candidates young people perhaps would not have gone to the polls if they did have that kind of stimulus but we have to also say that the elections are left in many more specific areas of those completely cold hearted we have very low turnout just there with 21 percent. Or was i think quite significant that the pros aswat not that much opposed to whether candidates were registered on the want but what group or what made people to redeploy in this proportional Security Response when people have been taken from the streets which have really nothing to do with the whole thing so that created more anger when meant all the street and rather than the initial action have equity what has been said before. We dont really know what putin really thinks but it is a very interesting topic toure speculate about the mysterious soul of the Russian Press but all the most serious note i would say that the elections over into Russian Parliament they doma would barely post this whether there will peer conditions for proper Political Party development free and fair are whether there will be some kind of fresh blood being allowed in whether there will be new or ways going about politics that will be a kind of the albatross of things to come. Considering the result of the election thus far do you believe that Going Forward when and or if there are further protests that the authorities will deal with them in a different manner. Well i dont see the reason for the process but this particular moment because they were focusing on. These elections on the elections are over i am absolutely sure that fortunately mr which of the Something Else in the not so distant future which would promote another wave of protests but this week most likely is over but i think that we really need to. Focus on those elections we see this. Hour this regime is not an example. It is beatable and thats probably the most all the tip outcome we saw in moscow we can win but we need to. Create a strategy for the duma elections and right now we will see with a lot of the Political Force for which we can vote for viktor we only have about one minute left someone ask you to please be quick with your answer how much leverage from your point of view does the opposition have now well at this point the opposition is tempting at least to claim victory in a difficult Political Landscape that it is working with and still gain as my shall leverage as possible from this for the upcoming state duma elections in 2021 and that will be the next step by the next election cycle a very important moment before before 2024. All right weve run out of time so thanks to all our guests victor all of it ilya and. And thank you too for watching you can see the program again any time by visiting our website aljazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com forward slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a. 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