Billionaire-turned-politician Mikhail Prokhorov has demanded to cancel results of the mayoral elections in the Moscow Region city of Zhukovsky, where a candidate from his party participated.

      Igor Novikov, a local businessman and a member of Prokhorov’s Civic Platform political party, came second with 27 percent of the votes on Sunday. He lost to Andrei Voityuk, a pro-government candidate running as an independent who scored 36 percent - this percent is right enough for winning. Communist Alexander Anikanov came third with 25 percent.

      Prokhorov spoke of “blatant violations” at the Zhukovsky elections in his official blog, promising to go to court over each violation report, as did Anikanov.

      No direct ballot stuffing was reported, but independent electoral watchdog Golos counted 75 instances of electoral violations, including vote buying. Some video reports available on YouTube shows local residents  queuing up for their payments of 1,000 rubles ($33) per vote.

      The head of the Moscow Region Election Commission, Irek Vildanov, said the violations were not substantial enough to affect the vote. At the same time, he said the Commission is ready to consider every application.