Update #2 - Hope for Demoracy in Russia?

Here we go back to April to revisit the case of Anton Chumachenko, who at that time was a newly-elected member of the St. Petersburg legislative council. Like many recent elections in Russia - from last year's presidential vote to April's high-profile mayoral race in Russia's Olympic city (in 2014 that is), Sochi - Chumachenko's was also marred by accusations of vote rigging in favor of the dominant United Russia party.

This worked out well for Chumachenko since he ran on the United Party ticket. But the 23-year old Chumachenko decided that wasn't the way he wanted to start his political career, so he challenged his own victory. Now Radio Free Europe is reporting that the court ruled in Chumachenko's favor - which in this case means his election was fraudulent - and gave the seat to his primary challenger, the Yabloko Party's Boris Vishnevsky (Yabloko was one of the two main liberal parties in Russia that flourished in the 1990s and still has solid support in fairly liberal St. Petersburg).

RFE reports that while the Chumachenko case is rare, it's not unique, citing several other cases across Russia where charges of vote fraud are being investigated, or where the public is pushing for the recall of a candidate they feel won their seat improperly. Whether it is a reliable sign of some of the reforms promised by President Dmitry Medvedev taking root though remains to be seen.