Did Muslim Vote Matter in Moscow Elections? One Losing Candidate Thinks So

Paul Goble

            Staunton, September 9 – For most people, the big story about yesterday’s elections in Moscow is that candidates from the opposition won 20 of the 45 seats in the city council (vedomosti.ru/politics/articles/2019/09/09/810782-partiya-vlasti-teryaet-moskvu  and chaskor.ru/news/kandidaty_ot_oppozitsii_zajmut_20_iz_45_deputatskih_mest_v_mosgordume_45257).

            But among the side stories that may matter in the longer term is another: Is there now a Moscow Muslim vote and how much does it matter in the victory of a Chechen against a Russian in the city council elections? If the capital’s Muslims are voting as a bloc – or even if they are assumed to be voting that way – political life in Russia is going to change.

            Valeriya Kasamara, who said she was running as an independent even though she was backed by United Russia, blamed her loss to Magomet Yandiyev on the votes he supposedly received from what she called the Muslim “diaspora” (nazaccent.ru/content/30862-moskovskij-kandidat-obyasnila-pobedu-konkurenta-na.html and echo.msk.ru/news/2497937-echo.html).

                “In the Meshchansk area of the 45^th electoral district is located the largest mosque of the city, and in addition, many Tatars live there. Without any nationalism intended, I say this [because] I simply understand that the diaspora is very much united and it has voted for its own. There is a religious factor in politics and in this case, it worked.”   

            Yandiyev, for his part, denied that the Muslim vote had won him victory. The docent at Moscow State University is a native of Grozny, Chechnya, and a former finance minister in Ingushetia. He says he won not because of any Muslim vote but rather because he was on Aleksey Navalny’s “smart voting” list (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/340029/).

            “Yes, I am a Muslim,” he told reporters, “but I don’t see any evidence that the Muslim umma voted massively for me. Muslims in principle are spread thin throughout Moscow and there is practically no concentration in this or that district.” (On Muslim neighborhoods in Moscow, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/ghettos-without-borders-appearing-in.html.)

            Yandiyev did not campaign extensively, but what may have tipped the balance in his favor besides the fact that he was on Navalny’s list and an opponent of United Russia was earlier reporting that Kasamara’s income last year was 21.9 million rubles (340,000 US dollars), more than eight times what Yandiyev declared. 

            Nonetheless, Kasamara’s willingness to talk about a Muslim vote in Moscow is noteworthy, an indication that she at least is prepared to play politics with religion. But more than that, it suggests that some in the party of power believe the religious factor matters – and believing it and saying it will go a long way to making it so.