The scene unfolding in Siberia was, naturally, unknown to Moscow.
If Rossiyana knew someone was buying votes in her stronghold at a high price, she would have jumped up immediately.
Yet, far away in Moscow, she was oblivious...
On January 23rd, the second round of the General Election had been going on for three days. With voting nearly complete in some regions, various news media began to speculate about the election results.
Of course, the media didn't just sit at home and imagine the outcomes; they dispatched numerous journalists to polling places in different regions to conduct rough counts and investigations, ensuring their predictions were generally accurate.
Just like in the first round, before the voting had ended, several major media outlets had announced the advancement of Medvedev, Grezlov, and Rossiyana, with very close vote counts, necessitating a second round to determine the winner. A third round might even be possible...