The Kremlin is not considering the possibility of offering a position in the echelons of power to opposition leader Alexei Navalny until he proves himself as a capable politician, the head of the presidential administration said.

      “For that, one has to prove that he is capable of doing something. And, for starters, one has to win something, at least the elections of the head of a municipal council…but nothing like that happened,” Sergey Ivanov said on Tuesday in his interview for Russian newspapers.

      Navalny, a politically ambitious anti-corruption blogger who helped organize large-scale anti-Kremlin protests in Moscow in 2011-2012, came in second place in September 8 elections receiving an impressive 27.2 percent of the vote versus the 51.3 percent had by former Kremlin administration head and incumbent Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

      The Kremlin chief of staff acknowledged the effectiveness of Navalny’s election campaign but downplayed its significance citing low electoral turnout caused by the “stable political climate in the country.”