| Two incumbent governors held on to their seats in weekend
regional elections while a third, Sverdlovsk Governor Eduard Rossel, was
forced into a runoff.
Novgorod Governor Mikhail Prusak and Omsk Governor Leonid Polezhayev
won 78.73 percent and 56 percent, respectively, of their regions' votes,
while Rossel collected only 42.85 percent in an election that will now
go into a second round, according to preliminary results released by the
regions' election committees on Monday.
All three incumbents have governed their regions for more than 10 years
and were running for third and final terms Sunday. Federal law requires
a second round to be held if no candidate wins 50 percent or more of the
vote.
Final results are expected to be released this week.
In a hiccup, the Novgorod election committee was supposed to finalize
its results Monday but postponed the announcement after irregularities
were found in a vote-count report for the region's Demyansky district,
Interfax reported.
Preliminary results showed that the Novgorod governor faced little competition.
The runners-up, St. Petersburg businessman Vladimir Dugenets and National
Power Party co-leader Alexander Sevastyanov, managed to collect only 4.39
percent and 4.34 percent, respectively.
Leonid Mayevsky, a Communist deputy in the State Duma, gave centrist
Omsk Governor Polezhayev more of a fight but still only garnered 28 percent
of the vote. The next two leading candidates won less than 2 percent combined,
Interfax said.
Sverdlovsk's charismatic Governor Rossel failed to win re-election outright
when Anton Bakov, a lawmaker in the regional legislative assembly, took
14.43 percent and Federation Council Senator Andrei Vikharev took 13.68
percent.
A total of 12.7 percent voted against all the candidates, while 7.23
percent picked the head of Yabloko's regional branch, Yury
Kuznetsov.
A runoff vote between Rossel and Bakov is scheduled for Sept. 21, Interfax
said.
Rossel's failure to win in the first round shows he has tolerated political
pluralism instead of strong-arming opposition in his region, as have Prusak
and Polezhayev, said Nikolai Petrov, a regional analyst with the Carnegie
Moscow Center. But there is little doubt that Rossel will win in the second
round, Petrov said.
In addition to gubernatorial elections, the country saw one mayoral
poll Sunday, in Murmansk. Deputy Murmansk Governor Gennady Guryanov won
with more than 53 percent of the vote, trouncing acting Murmansk Mayor
Vladimir Gnoyevsky, who came in second with 12 percent, Interfax said.
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Regional
Elections, 2003
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