Translated material
Mayors accepted
Stavropol "Socialist Revolutionaries" surrendered the regional center to United Russia in advance
The year-and-a-half confrontation between United and A Just Russia in the Stavropol Territory is nearing its finale. Yesterday, the city election commission completed the registration of candidates for the position of mayor of Stavropol. There were only four candidates, and A Just Russia, whose representative ruled the city before the conflict began, did not even nominate its candidate for the position of mayor, having accepted the inevitable defeat in advance.The favorite of the campaign in the city is considered to be the acting mayor of United Russia Nikolai Paltsev, a person from the team of the new governor of the region Valery Gaevsky . The head of the Communist Party faction in the regional Duma, Viktor Goncharov, will try to compete with him. Two self-nominated candidates will also be included in the ballot: Roman Marchenko, deputy head of the Stavropol branch of the Krasnodar University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, and cardiovascular surgeon Merab Khurtsilava. However, analysts consider them purely technical figures, whose task is to give the elections legitimacy in case a communist suddenly decides to leave the fight of his own free will. But according to Russian laws, it is still impossible to choose one from one.
At the same time, elections for a new City Duma will be held. And here the activity of the “Socialist Revolutionaries” is low. If “United Russia” nominated 62 candidates on the party list, which is more than enough for all parliamentary seats, then their colleagues from “A Just Russia” have a much more modest list - about two dozen people. And here they do not expect to win.
Meanwhile, on March 11, 2007, the Stavropol region became the only region in Russia where the Socialist-Revolutionaries, following the results of the elections to the regional Duma, managed to be the first to reach the finish line, and even with a large lead over United Russia. At that time, 37.61% of voters voted for the Social Revolutionaries, while United Russia received only 23.85%. This scandalous defeat first cost the region’s governor, Alexander Chernogorov, his United Russia party card, and subsequently became one of the reasons for his formally voluntary resignation as head of the region in the spring of 2008.
The “locomotive” of the electoral success of the “Socialist Revolutionaries” was the former Stavropol mayor Dmitry Kuzmin, an ambitious and very popular politician in the region. He was elected to the post of mayor in 2003 with the support of United Russia, but then changed his party orientation and headed the local branch of A Just Russia. During the federal parliamentary elections in December 2007, the Social Revolutionaries put Mr. Kuzmin number one on their regional party list. United Russia viewed him as a serious opponent - this can be seen from the fact that the troika of the party in power in the Stavropol region was headed by such political heavyweights as the head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu and the legendary wrestler, three-time Olympic champion Alexander Karelin. However, the Olympic champion did not have the chance to meet Mr. Kuzmin in a fair political duel. Literally on the eve of the elections, the former mayor was deregistered under a flimsy pretext. At the same time, law enforcement agencies promptly suspected the opposition mayor of real estate fraud and opened three criminal cases against him one after another.
According to the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s Office, Mr. Kuzmin’s actions caused damage to the treasury of almost 19 million rubles. The mayor went on the run, was put on the international wanted list and was found at one of the Vienna airports a month ago. The Austrian authorities detained him, and the Russian authorities began to prepare documents for the extradition of the fugitive to his native land. True, this issue remains unresolved for now: Russia has not yet provided the necessary documents, and therefore the Austrians extended Mr. Kuzmin’s detention. By the way, one of his closest associates, ex-speaker of the regional Duma Andrei Utkin, received a two-year suspended sentence for similar acts in June. However, shortly before this, he wisely left the post of speaker of the regional Duma, losing it to United Russia member Dmitry Edelev, the son of Deputy Head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Arkady Edelev. In the Stavropol region, no one doubts that Mr. Kuzmin, who refused to bow to the federal authorities, will not get off so cheaply. By the way, the disgraced politician, despite everything, continues to be listed as a member of A Just Russia and the head of its Stavropol regional branch.
Elections for the mayor of Stavropol and deputies of the City Duma will take place on a single voting day, October 12.