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Sobyanin will run in the Moscow mayoral elections as a self-nominee

Now he is to gather over 70,000 signatures of Moscow voters and 110 signatures of municipal deputies

Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed on Wednesday that he will run in Moscow mayoral elections as a self-nominee on September 8, because he does not look for easy ways. Now he will have to gather over 70,000 signatures of Moscow voters and 110 signatures of municipal deputies.

“The easiest way is to nominate from the party,” the Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily quoted the acting mayor as saying. “But it is needed to go on the hardest, most difficult way, enlisting the support from the voters,” he said at a meeting with the war veterans. Right after his official nomination a signup campaign in support of the candidate will begin in the Russian capital. The Moscow City Election Committee can register officially Sobyanin only after the required number of signatures is collected.

Sobyanin added that the Muscovites should have an opportunity to elect the mayor themselves, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily noted. Meanwhile, the personality of the mayor should unite different parties and movements for the settlement of the city problems. “Evidently, it is much more difficult to run as a self-nominee,” political expert Vitaly Tretyakov believes. “Without using the assistance from United Russia or the All-Russia Popular Front, it is needed to find people, who will help gather tens of thousands of signatures of Muscovites. However, in case of election, the legitimacy of this mayor will be maximally high that I believe Sergei Sobyanin will attain,” he noted.

Sobyanin’s rivals explain his decision by the reluctance to link his candidature with United Russia, the Kommersant daily reported. A sharp fall in the United Russia rating “is absolutely obvious” and “certainly, a serious candidate does not want to link himself tightly with this party,” State Duma Vice-Speaker, First Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party Ivan Melnikov said. Deputy chairman of the LDPR faction in the State Duma Vladimir Ovsyannikov added that the United Russia ratings in the Russian capital are lower than that of Sergei Sobyanin - “the results of the sociological surveys are in favour of him.”

The main potential rival of the acting mayor is Civic Platform leader Mikhail Prokhorov, who should state on Thursday about his decision to run in the mayoral elections, the newspaper noted. He delayed his statement, because he consulted with the lawyers over a possible quick processing of his foreign assets.

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