Sergei Levchenko, of the Communist Party, was elected governor of Siberia's Irkutsk region, results showed Sunday, the first politician from a nominal opposition party to win a vote for regional boss since the Kremlin restored such elections in 2012.
Levchenko, a communist member of the State Duma lower house of parliament in Moscow, won 56.9 percent of the vote, easily defeating the incumbent, Sergei Yeroshenko, from United Russia, President Vladimir Putin's political party.
The positions of governor of Russia's 85 regions are among the most powerful in the country. From 2005 until 2012 they were appointed by the Kremlin, and since then United Russia candidates or Kremlin supporters have won all contests.