When St Petersburg journalist Alexandra Garmazhapova attended a closed meeting in the local district administration, she became privy to a secret operation to maximize the vote for outgoing governor Valentina Matviyenko in Sunday’s municipal elections [which have themselves been designed to propel Matviyenko to a new job in the Senate]. Garmazhapova wrote what she saw and heard, and published it on the Russian website fontanka.ru. The story was taken down within four hours, and she resigned. We republish the article in full.

The recent appointment of Mikhail Prokhorov as leader of the liberal party Right Cause is puzzling. He’s the third richest man in Russia, so why should he bother? He has no choice, argues Mikhail Loginov. The Kremlin wants a hate figure on the scene to shore up support for Putin’s United Russia ahead of the parliamentary election. And you don’t disobey the Kremlin.

Since the 1990s, post-Soviet elites have used manipulation, corruption and the government machine to maintain their grip on power. But with countries' paths diverging over time and with little opposition to speak of in many cases, Andrew Wilson asks: why is there still a need for these dark arts?

Businessman Mikhail Prokhorov recently became leader of the moribund party “Right Cause.” The Kremlin clearly had a hand in this and billionaires are increasingly expected to take on tasks the government finds difficult, but President Medvedev is also keen to demonstrate that liberal ideas are alive and kicking in Russia, explains Dmitry Travin.