Diamond winner

Pre-election processes in Yakutia may be replaced by post-election processes

Residents of Yakutia finally elected a new president yesterday. According to preliminary data, the second round of elections was won by the head of the ALROSA company (Almazy Russia-Sakha) Vyacheslav Shtyrov. As it turned out after processing 84% of the ballots, 50.89% of voters voted for him. Rival Fedot Tumusov, who heads the financial and industrial group SAPI (Sakhaalmazprominvest), was preferred by 45.66% of voters.

The winning margin is such that it allows the losing side to cast doubt on the voting results. After all, having outperformed his opponent by more than 4 percent, the head of ALROSA actually collected only 16-17 thousand more votes. Therefore, it is likely that Fedot Tumusov will try to demand verification of the accuracy of the vote count. True, the head of SAPI has not yet announced such an intention.

Nevertheless, it is possible that the lawsuits that accompanied the Yakut election campaign in large numbers will continue after its completion. Moreover, Mr. Tumusov was in the lead when the republican Central Election Commission began counting votes. The head of SAPI was ahead of his diamond colleague until information was received about the voting results in large (by republican standards) cities: Yakutsk, Lensk, Mirny, Neryungri.

The initial result was unexpected, given that in the first round, Mr. Tumusov was able to collect only 17% of the votes, while Mr. Shtyrov received 45.6%. Perhaps Mr. Tumusov's success in rural areas is explained by the fact that representatives of the indigenous nationality of Yakutia, the Sakha (a third of the republic's million population), voted for him. The Sakha's readiness to support “their” candidate was noted in sociological surveys on the eve of the elections. But the townspeople put Mr. Shtyrov ahead, who was considered the favorite of the race even before the first round of elections.

Victor KHAMRAEV