All news

Ruling party’s candidate leading mayoral elections in Novosibirsk - preliminary results

NOVOSIBIRSK, April 06 /ITAR-TASS/. Novosibirsk’s acting mayor Vladimir Znatkov, nominated by the ruling United Russia party, is heading mayoral polls in that Siberian city with 44.05 percent of the vote, chairperson of the city election commission Olga Blago said on Sunday, after the commission had counted 1.3 percent of votes.

His closest rival, Anatoly Lokot of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) is lagging behind with 39.82 percent of votes.

“The situation at polling stations is calm,” she noted. “As of 21:48 local time (18:48 Moscow time), as many as 4,731 ballot papers were counted. A total of 2,084 voters voted for Znatkov, and 1,884 - for Lokot.”

The elections are held in one round. A successful candidate has to score the simple majority of the vote. The elections will be valid regardless of the turnout.

According to updated information, the turnout as of 19:30 local time (16:30 Moscow time) was 31.31 percent. The highest turnout of 39.37 percent was reported from Novosibirsk Central district.

Eleven candidates are vying for the post of mayor of Novosibirsk: acting mayor of Novosibirsk Vladimir Znatkov (the United Russia party); lawmakers from the Russian State Duma lower parliament house Anatoly Lokot (the Communist Party) and Dmitry Savelyev (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia); Sergei Troitsky, the leader of the Corrosion of Metal group (Against All movement); Vladimir Anisimov, the former vice-governor of the Novosibirsk region (Russian Cities); Anatoly Kubanov, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk region (A Just Russia party); Alexander Tarkov (The Working Russia); Alexei Yuzhanin (The Party of Russia’s Spiritual Transformation); Sergei Ovchinnikov (The Russian Party of People’s Governance) and Roman Starikov (The Communists of Russia). Pensioner Yevgeny Loginov, representing the Russian Breakthrough movement, is the only self-nominated candidate.

The Novosibirsk elections went down in the Russian Book of Records by the number of candidates who initially submitted their registration documents - 35.

The early mayoral elections were appointed after Novosibirsk’s former mayor Vladimir Gorodetsky, who has occupied the post since 2000, stepped down ahead of time on January 9, 2014. He was appointed vice-governor of the Novosibirsk region on the same day. After the resignation of the Novosibirsk region’s former governor Vasily Yurchenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed the former Novosibirsk mayor as acting governor of the region.