27 April 2009, 19:30
Anatoly Pakhomov wins election of Sochi Mayor
The first round of the election of Sochi Mayor resulted in 76.86% of votes cast for the candidate from "Edinaya Rossiya", acted Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov. These are the totals of the City Electoral Commission (CEC) of Sochi after tabulation of 100% of votes.
According to Yuri Rykov, Chairman of the CEC, the oppositional politician Boris Nemtsov has won 13.6% of votes. The third place was taken by Yuri Dzaganiya, candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) - 6.75% of votes. Candidate from the LDPR Alexei Kolesnikov has gathered 1.27%, Pavel Emelyanenko - 1% of votes, and Vladimir Trukhanovskiy - 0.5% of votes.
The voter turnout was 42.98% - 112,500 persons took part in the election. The vote tabulation was over today in the morning; and officially, no complaints on the voting results have been registered, as the "Gazeta.Ru" reports.
According to Ilya Yashin, head of the electoral office of candidate Boris Nemtsov, according to exit polls of the voters, Pakhomov gathered about 46% of votes. Nemtsov has won about 35% of Sochi voters. Thus, Nemtsov's supporters insist on the second round of voting. The candidate has already stated his intention to go to court on multiple violations and direct falsification of the election outcomes.
In the opinion of Evgeniy Rasschepkin, Second Secretary of the Krasnodar Territorial CPRF Committee, the main violations were admitted at the stage of early voting. As to the voting day, according to Mr Rasschepkin, several minor slight violations have been revealed so far. Some people, having come to the polling station, were surprised to see that someone had already voted for them. On this fact, a request was lodged to the prosecutor's office.
Independent observers from the "Golos" (Vote) Association also spoke about violations. They counted over 30,000 of early voters out of less than 300,000 of registered voters in general. During the last night before the election, the number of them doubled: in the evening on Saturday, April 25, they made 5% of the total electorate, and in the morning on Sunday - already almost 11%.
