Incumbent Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin won elections in the Russian capital with over 51% 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% of the vote and Navalny 27.27%, the Moscow election commission said, in a count based on 99.6% 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% of the vote and pro-Kremlin Yakov Silin 26.48%, 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.
