The battle is heating up

It looks like there will be a serious fight for the seat of mayor of Sochi (if, of course, the election commission registers everyone). Following the co-chairman of the united democratic movement “Solidarity” Boris Nemtsov and the notorious Duma deputy from the LDPR Andrei Lugovoy, businessman and politician Alexander Lebedev announced his intention to run.

Lebedev told Interfax that many Sochi residents contacted him through his blog with requests to solve the city's problems. According to him, he has a plan to solve them. “These are dilapidated housing, traffic jams, problems with the allocation of land plots, social protection of Sochi residents and much more. And I have a specific program on how to save about 100-150 billion rubles in preparation for the Winter Olympics in order to use these funds to improve the lives of Sochi residents themselves.”

Mayoral elections are scheduled for April 26. Registration of candidates continues until March 26. Nemtsov has already submitted documents for registration and must open an account with Sberbank to make a deposit. Lebedev is also going to make a deposit, and not collect signatures.

Last September, information appeared that Lebedev, together with former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, was going to create a new party. This idea was then supported by former Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov. In January of this year, Lebedev, Gorbachev, Ryzhkov, as well as the former first deputy of the Central Bank Sergei Aleksashenko and the publisher of the Svobodnaya Mysl magazine Vladislav Inozemtsev presented their program for overcoming the crisis. After it became known about Nemtsov’s intention to run for mayor of Sochi, Ryzhkov said that he welcomed “such a serious act,” his words were reported to Grani.Ru. Ryzhkov, contacted by the Daily Journal, refused to comment on the message about Lebedev’s intention to run for office.

Later, the chairman of the public movement “Arm Wrestling Federation” Stanislav Koretsky announced his desire to become the mayor of Sochi. At the same time, it became known that Sochi businessman Pavel Emelianenko, the first to declare his intention to run, announced that he was withdrawing his candidacy.