The candidate from A Just Russia became the only candidate for mayor of Krasnoyarsk

Alexander Koropachinsky, nominated by A Just Russia, will represent the opposition in the elections for the head of Krasnoyarsk. At the primaries that took place at the end of last week, he collected 11 thousand votes from citizens, beating three candidates included in the coalition. The losers have already submitted applications for self-recusal to the city election commission. In case of victory in the elections, Mr. Koropachinsky promised all of them a job in the mayor's office.

The coalition against the candidate for mayor of Krasnoyarsk from United Russia, Edkham Akbulatov, included Alexander Koropachinsky, nominated by A Just Russia, Natalya Podolyak, LDPR, as well as self-nominated candidates Konstantin Senchenko and Sergei Tolmachev. They signed a resolution in which they agreed to hold primaries and, in case of loss, to withdraw their candidacies in favor of the winning candidate. Mikhail Prokhorov and the regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation also promised to support the winner of the primaries.

The coalition announced the results of the primaries yesterday. The winner was Alexander Koropachinsky with 36.8% of the votes. Konstantin Senchenko scored 24.2%, Sergei Tolmachev - 23.8%, Natalya Podolyak - 15.1% (according to the organizers, 31.8 thousand people took part in the voting). Immediately after the announcement of the results of the primaries, Mr. Koropachinsky said that he would continue to cooperate with the eliminated candidates during the elections, and in case of victory, he promised all coalition participants high positions in the Krasnoyarsk city administration. As Kommersant was told yesterday by the city election commission, they have already received applications for self-recusal from candidates Konstantin Senchenko, Sergei Tolmachev and Natalya Podolyak, which the commission will consider on Tuesday.

“Now in the mayoral elections there is a single candidate from the opposition who can seriously oppose the candidate from the party in power. Alexander (Koropachinsky - Kommersant ) now bears responsibility not only to those who voted for him in the first round, but also to all participants in the coalition. I think he will justify this trust. There's a lot at stake. Not only for Krasnoyarsk, but also for Russia,” Mr. Prokhorov commented on the results of the primaries in his LiveJournal.

Meanwhile, yesterday the results of alternative primaries were announced, which were held simultaneously with the voting on opposition candidates and showed fundamentally different results. They were organized by the public association “I am a Krasnoyarsk”, which positions itself as a council of citizens. According to the organization, 197 thousand people took part in them. The winner with 41% of the votes was businessman Mikhail Oskolkov (first nominated by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which is now trying to withdraw his candidacy), Alexey Podkorytov, supported by the ex-owner of KrAZ Anatoly Bykov, won 22%, Mr. Koropachinsky with 13% became only third.

The winner of the opposition primaries has already accused the organizers of the alternative vote of trying to disrupt the first round of coalition elections. “We know for sure that all this is the work of the headquarters of the United Russia candidate Edkham Akbulatov. They are trying with all their might to prevent the nomination of a single strong candidate: they are scattering fake ballots and organizing primaries on the same day as us,” says Tatyana Khlebopros, a representative of Koropachinsky’s headquarters. According to coalition members, they are under active administrative pressure. As an example, they cite the resolution of the city election commission, which last Friday recognized the primaries as illegal campaigning, after which 30 of the 160 ballot boxes were seized, and the primaries were on the verge of collapse. The City Election Commission decided that, in accordance with current legislation, candidates must submit samples of visual campaigning. There were no ballot boxes among the materials declared by the coalition participants, and this was considered a violation.

Political scientist Alexander Chernyavsky calls the primaries a PR campaign for the coalition, “the main task of which is to confuse people so that they do not come to the real elections on June 10.” Only in this state of affairs “does the coalition candidate have a chance to compete with the main contender, United Russia member Edkham Akbulatov,” the expert believes. Political scientist Sergei Komaritsyn, on the contrary, believes that low turnout will only worsen the chances of Alexander Koropachinsky, and the primaries are a mistake, since “his voters were misinformed, and now there is a high probability that they will not come to the real elections.”

Dmitry Malkov, Krasnoyarsk

The opposition has merged