MOSCOW, June 19 (Itar-Tass) - Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s supporters will start collecting signatures for his nomination as candidate in the upcoming mayoral elections.
Signatures will be collected in public places, at subway stations, in parks and recreational places. “We are planning to set up 220 posts for collecting signatures at 183 locations,” the press service of his election headquarters told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday, June 19.
Signature collectors will wear special caps and T-shirts.
On Monday, Sobyanian became the ninth candidate to have submitted documents to the election commission. On Saturday, June 15, Sergei Mitrokhin of Yabloko, Alexei Navalny of RPR-PARNAS, and Mikhail Degtyarev of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia filed their documents.
Last week, the commission received documents from rock singer Sergei “Pauk” Troitsky, Svetlana Peunova, leader of the Volya (Freedom) Party, Ivan Karpushkin, 33, Director-General of a Moscow-based company, and unemployed Alexei Denisov, 30.
Igor Suzdaltsev, 50, deputy director of the Kalita-Finan company, was the first to have submitted his documents on June 11.
Early mayoral elections will be held in Moscow on September 8 and will be the first ones in ten years.
In early June, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on early termination of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s tour of duty.
Sobyanin had earlier tendered resignation, asking the president to accept it.
Putin accepted his resignation and instructed him to remain as acting mayor of Moscow until the mayoral election, the date of which will be set by the Moscow City Duma.
At a meeting with Putin on June 5, Sobyanin said he had discussed the issue of holding an early mayoral election in Moscow with the Moscow City Duma deputies and representatives of the local authorities at a meeting of the Public Council.
“This is the first time in the last ten years that it is now legally possible to hold such an election, and after consultations, I decided that it would be the right thing to hold this election this year,” the mayor said.
Putin noted that Sobyanian had been working successfully and asked him to continue this work. “I will sign today an executive order naming you as acting mayor until the election, and I ask you to ensure that all of the city’s services continue working without problem,” he said.
“No matter what domestic political events are going on, in a huge city like Moscow, maintaining social and public order is essential. I hope you will manage. We have been working together for a long time now and I know your abilities,” Putin said.
He asked Sobyanin if he was going to run in the election.
“Yes, Mr President,” the mayor replied. “We have a number of big programmes underway in Moscow and it would not be right to abandon them midway. I therefore think I should run in the election.”
Putin wished him success.