MOSCOW, June 7 (Itar-Tass World Service) - Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s acting Mayor, is a member of the United Russia Party’s Supreme Council. He is most likely to nominate his own candidature for the mayoral elections due on September 8. The party says other “40 parties” “may want” to support him. Sobyanin’s main potential competitor -- leader of Civil Platform Mikhail Prokhorov - has not announced his plans regarding the election due to his foreign assets. Instead of him, the party may nominate the businessman’s sister -- Irina Prokhorova, who used to present him successfully during the presidential election.
On Thursday, Sergei Sobyanin had consultations with Chairman of United Russia Dmitry Medvedev and with the country’s leader of the General Council Sergei Neverov, where they discussed the form of the nomination, the Kommersant writes. Following the meeting, Neverov said “Moscow has a form of self-nomination,” and the city “is about the only territory,” where it is legal. “We should mine, that in the capital city about seven dozens parties are registered, and, perhaps, 40 of those would prefer to support Sergei Sobyanin during the election,” he told the newspaper. The Kommersant learned from the mayor’s circles, that Sobyanin is most likely to nominate himself.
If this happens, Sobyanin will have to collect signatures from one percent of Muscovites (about 80,000) and six percent of the city’s municipal deputies, the newspaper says. Party nominees have to collect signatures of the municipal deputies only. In the new big Moscow there are almost 1,800 municipal deputies - Sobyanin should collect signatures of about 110 of them.
However, there is no clear picture as yet regarding the list of Sobyanin’s competitors. Mikhail Prokhorov may choose not to participate in the election as he has foreign assets. A most probable candidate, if Prokhorov does not participate, the party called his sister, Chief Editor of the Novoye Literaturnoye Obozreniye - Irina Prokhorova. “It is 90 percent probable that she would be the candidate,” a party member said.
Irina Prokhorova appeared in the political arena during the presidential campaign in 2012, where she was Mikhail Prokhorov’s trusted representative. Following her television debates with Vladimir Putin’s representative Producer Nikita Mikhalkov, political analysts called her the only “strong aspect” of the businessman’s campaign. In Prokhorov’s party, Irina is responsible for cultural policies.
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Every fifth Russian would like to emigrate
Analysts of the Levada-Centre organised a survey about emigration, and the results have shown that the number of Russians who would like to leave abroad forever, is growing. The highest rate was shown among students and housewives. However, the media say the desires of the kind are typical for many people worldwide.
According to the poll’s results, 22 percent of Russians would like to emigrate, the Novye Izvestia writes. At the same time, 70 percent of the surveyed said they would prefer to stay in Russia. While responding to the question about reasons for a possible emigration, 49 percent mentioned better life conditions abroad, 32 percent are not happy with the unstable economic situation, 31 percent would want to emigrate in order to assure decent and reliable future for their children, 18 percent named as the reason Russia’s lack of protection from arbitrariness of the authorities and officials, ten percent disapprove of the current political situation, and 14 percent are not happy about the conditions for doing business in Russia. Most often the thoughts about emigration come to Muscovites and those living in the country’s other big cities (27 percent).
The newspaper continues saying that a symbolic picture of the Russians’ emigration moods was the information on Thursday that an opposing politician and former World Chess Champion Garri Kasparov has made a decision to emigrate from Russia. He explained the decision by fears to be followed by the country’s authorities. “I used to be travelling back and forwards till late February, where it became clear that the continuing investigation into political activists may affect me, too,” Kasparov told a news conference in Geneva. “Now, I am truly doubting I would be able to leave the country once I am back in Moscow. Thus, for a certain time, I will refrain from returning to Russia.”
The desire to emigrate is typical for people worldwide, and the dynamics in age, social positions are about similar in Russia and in Europe, the Komsomolskaya Pravda writes. However, the number of those wishing to leave Europe is even higher than the number of those wishing to leave Russia. For example, every second French aged between 18 and 24, the Express weekly says, would like to emigrate from France to whatever country. Moreover, many not just want to emigrate, but do leave to the US, Dubai, China. The United Kingdom’s two thirds of the middle class, local analysts say, also dream of leaving the island (the main reason being the climate), and hundreds of thousands do so every year. A similar situation is in Germany, where the number of emigrants is higher than that of immigrants - for example, in 2008, the number of immigrants made 682,000, while 738,000 Germans left the country, the weekly writes.