Translated material
"No one can stop me"
The Kaliningrad branch of United Russia and Oleg Gazmanov parted ways amicably
After a scandal in the Kaliningrad branch of United Russia with a list for primaries, singer Oleg Gazmanov was excluded from the list of candidates for party voting in the party’s personnel reserve. The Vremya Novostey newspaper previously wrote about the inclusion of the singer on the list against his will. It turned out that due to a change in the local leadership of the party, there were quite a few “strange” candidates on the regional list.At the end of July, the party in power officially published lists for primaries in all Russian regions. For the westernmost region of the country, the list of the party in power was somewhat unexpected. And for the local United Russia members themselves. As a source in the regional branch of United Russia explained to Vremya Novostei, there was a discrepancy with the list. The regional branch of the party changed its secretary (instead of Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Shalimov, the speaker of the regional Duma, Sergei Bulychev, was elected, who came to Kaliningrad together with Georgy Boos, the current Kaliningrad governor). The old secretary retired de jure, but the new one has not yet started de facto. However, the list had already been compiled and sent to St. Petersburg, from where United Russia coordinator for the north-west Andrei Nelidov forwarded it to the party’s central executive committee. There, of course, they did not double-check the list, but quickly approved it at the bureau of the Supreme Council.
And then in Kaliningrad, reading the list, they were surprised how some people got on it. In an interview with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, the speaker of the regional parliament and the newly appointed head of the regional branch of United Russia, Sergei Bulychev, essentially admitted that he had overlooked: “I only took part in compiling the list for party voting once. Then we discussed the inclusion of the candidacies of Governor Georgy Boos, State Duma deputy Evgeny Fedorov, and Mayor of Kaliningrad Yuri Savenko.” Apparently, some other meeting was held (in secret from the main party member of the region?), at which, for example, Alexander Volkov, as well as Yuri Dudkin, Alexander Egorov, Oleg Gazmanov were included in the list. Mr. Volkov is a once famous tennis player, vice-captain of the Russian national team and in the recent past coach of Marat Safin, a native of Kaliningrad. Mr. Dudkin heads a local meat processing plant. Mr. Egorov represents the interests of businessman Alexander Dronov, who actively wants to become a politician (during the elections of deputies to the regional Duma, he, for example, was a candidate from the People's Party, which sharply criticized United Russia, and during the elections of deputies to the Kaliningrad City Council, he was remembered for handcuffing himself at the police station). There is no need to introduce Oleg Gazmanov further - this is the same “esaul” who was “born in the Soviet Union,” more precisely, in Kaliningrad.
“I put question marks opposite some names, for example Egorov, Dudkin, Volkov. So the list will probably have to be changed. In the near future, the leadership of the regional branch of the party will carefully study it, thinking it over again,” Speaker Bulychev told Vremya Novostei. When asked who prepared the list that put the top officials of the regional United Russia in such an awkward position, the party secretary made it clear that those responsible should be sought in the regional executive committee. Mr. Bulychev generally spoke very unflatteringly about the executive committee, emphasizing that the mechanism of its work needs to be changed.
The executive committee refrains from commenting in response, which is understandable. The head of the executive committee is regional Duma deputy Valentina Kalinkova, who, like Mr. Bulychev, came to Kaliningrad at the call of Georgy Boos. That is, they are both Muscovites representing the interests of one person, which means that clarifying the relationship between them is impossible in principle. However, this is just a theory.
When a more thorough study of the list for the primaries took place, despite the speaker's question marks, everything remained in place. The capital’s party comrades did not dare say “no” to the decision. But suddenly a problem arose with Oleg Gazmanov. He himself stated that the inclusion of his candidacy in the party list was based on the principle “they married me without me.” And in general, he does not want to have anything to do with politics, and therefore his name is not appropriate on the list. On the party’s website www.edinros.ru, we note that there are messages in which Mr. Gazmanov is mentioned among the members and supporters of United Russia. However, in the end they met the singer halfway. Now his name is not on the party list.