vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #614 / Special reports / Reading article...

Only 6 of the 26 candidates who registered for participation in Vladivostok’s mayoral elections this May will be considered by the city’s election commission for approval to get onto the ballots. All of the rest were refused further consideration due to the absence of the entrance fee or its ‘incorrect submission.’

According to the election rules, a person seeking to become a candidate in a mayoral race should submit either 4,460 signatures from his supporters, or pay an entrance fee of one million rubles ($41,600). Twelve of the candidates decided to take the safer route and submitted the fees. However, on Monday, the final day for submitting all documents, the election commission announced that the candidates did not follow the exact instructions for submitting the entrance fee and they will all be banned from further participation. The commission said the incorrectly submitted money will be returned to the candidates.

Among the unsuccessful candidates there are at least three contenders who could count on victory in the elections – Viktor Cherepkov, former mayor of Vladivostok and former State Duma deputy, Nikolai Markovtsev, the city’s Duma deputy and Dmitry Novikov, a journalist and the city’s Duma deputy.

Six of the registered candidates did not submit anything to the election commission and two withdrew their applications themselves.

The remaining six candidates fall into two categories – three people submitted signatures and the election commission will have to check if they were collected in the correct way and three people submitted applications as candidates from political parties. Among those who will have to prove their supporters’ signatures are two entrepreneurs Viktor Cherevkov and Irina Alyoshina, as well as the city’s Duma deputy Sergei Zimin.

The three candidates who are on the safe side enjoying the support of their parties are Igor Pushakaryov from the United Russia, Gennady Turmov nominated by the local branch of the Communist Party and Alexander Baranov, who was recommended by the local branch of the Liberal Democratic Party. Pushakaryov also enjoys the support of numerous billboards “Who is the Kremlin man?” decorating the city’s streets where his name is written in small letters under the puzzling question.

On April 16 the names of the successful candidates able to participate in Vladivostok mayoral elections will be announced.

The elections for the Vladivostok mayoral office were selected to be held on May 18 after Vladivostok Mayor Vladimir Nikolayev was sentenced by the city’s Leninsky Court to a suspended four and a half year imprisonment with three years parole on December 24, 2007. Nikolayev was dismissed from his position in February 2007 and arrested a week later on charges of misspending the city’s budget funds and selling federal land plots to private individuals.