| The place of parliamentary candidate Mikhail Khodorkovsky may be taken against his will On October 7, the deadline for notifying the election commission of the desire to participate in the by-elections to the State Duma for the 201st University District of Moscow expires. To date, about 30 candidates have already submitted documents to the district commission. And last Monday, the Russian Central Election Commission approved candidates from the United Russia and Rodina parties.
Film director Stanislav Govorukhin is running from United Russia in the 201st district, and Sergei Danilenko, a former member of the Central Election Commission and deputy head of the apparatus of the Rodina Duma faction, is running from the Rodina party. A representative of United Russia does not need to collect voter signatures or make a cash deposit to register, since he is elected from a party represented in parliament. Candidates from Rodina will have to go through these procedures, since the party did not participate in the parliamentary elections on its own, but as part of a bloc.
Disgraced oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky was also planning to run in the same district. But after the cassation court confirmed the legality of the sentence imposed on Mr. Khodorkovsky, the ex-head of Yukos will not be able to participate in the Duma elections. The initiative group for his nomination, led by the secretary of the federal political council of the Union of Right Forces, Ivan Starikov, promised to introduce his “understudy” to journalists in order not to give up his seat in the State Duma without a fight and to use the information occasion. But yesterday the press conference at which the name of the “understudy” was supposed to be announced was cancelled.
At the same time, Democrats who are not part of the initiative group are concerned about their representation in the University District. The leader of the Our Choice party, Irina Khakamada, who, according to opinion polls, has the highest trust rating among Democrats in Moscow, put forward three conditions for her participation: support for the Democrats, financing of her election campaign, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s clear position on whether there is a need for anyone to then run for office in his place.
As Vadim Prokhorov, a lawyer for the initiative group, told Vremya Novostey, Mr. Khodorkovsky’s “understudy” could be a person whom he would name himself. “As far as I know, Khodorkovsky did not name any names,” Mr. Prokhorov said.
Yesterday, the district election commission received a statement from former TV presenter and satirist Viktor Shenderovich. According to him, he decided to run because these by-elections are the last opportunity for society to express their position, since the entire procedure for parliamentary elections in the country has been turned into a farce. Recalling that Mikhail Khodorkovsky was a contender for a deputy seat in this district, Mr. Shenderovich said that he himself is not going to retrain as a politician and the election campaign for him is just an experiment. Nevertheless, in a commentary to Vremya Novostey, Mr. Shenderovich said that he could well be considered a “candidate from the democratic forces”, since he is a member of the “2008 Committee”. “I was not officially nominated by the committee, but that is because my nomination happened after the last committee meeting. But there is little time left. I have nothing to do with the initiative group to nominate Khodorkovsky.”
Suspecting that the Democrats may not agree on a single candidate, the daughter of one of the founders of the Union of Right Forces, coordinator of the youth movement “Yes!”, recently announced her possible participation in the elections. Maria Gaidar. As Vremya Novostei was told by the district election commission, on Monday Ms. Gaidar submitted documents to the commission and intends to participate in the by-elections as a self-nominated candidate.
Commenting on her decision to Vremya Novostey, Maria Gaidar said: “As far as I know, Viktor Shenderovich submitted documents to the district election commission. I have a very good attitude towards Shenderovich, and my position has remained unchanged: there must be a single candidate from the democratic forces. Due to the specifics of the work of the Central Election Commission, there is a risk that Shenderovich may not be registered, just like me. Therefore, I will continue to collect signatures in my support, and everything will finally become clear on October 19, when an officially registered candidate appears. But I’ll repeat once again: I have a positive attitude towards Shenderovich, and if he registers, I’m ready to withdraw my candidacy.” Daria GUSEVA |
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