Alexei Navalny, the opposition candidate for Moscow's mayor, will only decide whether to challenge the weekend election after federal officials present preliminary results with 100 percent of the votes counted, his campaign headquarters said Monday.
The Moscow elections committee said earlir Monday that incumbent Mayor Sergei Sobyanin won Sunday's election with 51.37 percent of the vote after 100 percent of the ballots were counted. Navalny, it said, placed second with 27.24 percent.
But Leonid Volkov, Navalny's campaign manager, said Navalny was waiting to see the results from the Central Elections Commission before deciding his next move.
"We don't really understand what data the Moscow elections committee is using when it talks of the victory of Moscow Acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin with 100 percent of the votes counted," Volkov said, according to Interfax.
He said only 70 percent of the vote had been entered so far into the system of the Central Elections Commission.
Volkov said he believed that Sobyanin had not garnered more than 49.4 percent, a result that would require a runoff election between Sobyanin and Navalny.
Volkov added that no matter what Navalny decided to do official, his supporters would gather at Bolotnaya Ploshchad later Monday and rally for a runoff vote.
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