St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko is doing her part to ensure that anxiety about election violations starts early this year, after it emerged yesterday that her registration for the August 21st municipal elections was the only one permitted, as the deadline came just before information about the elections was made public.  The Moscow Times reported that ‘[e[ven the head of the St. Petersburg election committee said he only learned about Matviyenko’s candidacy from media reports.’

In other words, opposition candidates have effectively been barred from running against Matviyenko, ensuring her victory.  A Just Russia are claiming that her candidacy is illegal, due the secrecy involved, and Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin has complained to President Dmitry Medvedev about this ‘derision of law’.  But the fact is that Matviyenko needs to win this one precisely because Medvedev wants her to become Federation Council speaker, a role she cannot step into without winning an election to a local legislature.  Matviyenko is a hugely unpopular candidate in her hometown, so it seems fairly reasonable to assume that, without the help of dirty tricks, she would not fairly have won either election.