Gubernatorial Election in Irkutsk: Prehistory and Nomination of Candidates

The last time the populace of Irkutsk region elected its governor was long time ago in 2001. Then an interesting clash of different financial and industrial groups took place and two rounds of election were held. According to the election results, Boris Govorin managed to preserve his position in the election battle against the communist Sergei Levchenko, with the slight margin of two percent. In summer of 2005 Govorin intended to run for the third term, but for some reason he was not approved in the capital of our country.

All the other governors were appointed by the Kremlin. The first one was Tishanin Alexander (2005-2008) from Zheleznodorozhny, however he has hold the office just half of the term, then his successors were the State Duma MP and the member of ‘avtoVAZovtsev' Igor Yesipovsky, he died while hunting after a year of office, and the vice-speaker of the Federation Council and a friend of Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Mezentsev (2009-2012). However he could not manage to properly work, despite the fact that he supported the construction of 130th historic quarter in Irkutsk. Commissioned articles in national media about his resignation could be spotted a year before his resignation. Everybody was crying out that he was not a local, not at all. Two days before the day when the governor could have been elected, a businessman from ‘their milleu’ Sergey Eroschenko was appointed.

Any governor, who is appointed, of course, wants to be re-elected enjoying an overwhelming support of the population. Last year we have witnessed this, when in some parts of Central Russia, persons rather unknown in the public were elected to the post of governor. It was the turn of Irkutsk.

Immediately after the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Victory, Eroschenko at the reception with Putin asked for early re-election on September 13. At the June 5th parliamentary session, the Legislative Assembly of Irkutsk region announced the election date. On June 8, all the necessary documents were published in the newspaper ‘Oblastnaya’, the nomination of candidates got started.

There were seven candidates: the incumbent governor Sergey Eroschenko representing ‘United Russia’ overwhelmed all the others at the primaries; the State Duma MP nominated by the Communist Party, Sergei Levchenko (the same Levchenko); the member of the regional Legislative Assembly, the leader of the LDPR faction Oleg Kuznetsov; the incumbent chairman of the regional branch of ‘Just Russia’ Larisa Egorova; the journalist Artur Pianov nominated by ‘Civic Platform’; the leader of regional Irkutsk branch of ‘Patriots’ Vasily Pronichev; running for every election in order to quarrel and file some complaints to the court, the chairman of the regional branch of the ‘Russian Party of Pensioners for Justice’ Leonid Karnaukhov (in April 2015, all the news from Angarsk about this candidate was only referring to the judicial proceedings, and the entire 2014 he was engaged in the trial as he was denied access to the competition for a position of city manager of Usole-Sibirskoye). ‘Yabloko’ and RPR-Parnas immimently declared that they would not nomine any candidate due to the lack of resources.

The municipal threshold - 257 signatures should be collected. Two Sergey - Eroschenko and Levchenko – will make it easily. Most likely, the LDP and the Socialists will be ‘assisted’ in collecting the signatures in order to faciliate competition and refrain from getting rid of the parliamentary party. For the rest – it depends upon their negotiations with the ‘gray house’ (respectively, the governor and his team). Maybe they will manage to collect the signatures or maybe not.

On September 13, it will be solved. Although experts believe that this will happen much earlier. However, I know a number of persons from political and media communities who are planning to take a vacation after September 27, taking into account the second round of election, which might be held two weeks after the single voting day. Since 2012, in Putin's Russia this has not happened yet. Will Irkutsk break the armor of ‘United Russia’? Reference:

Since 1991, 8 persons have held the Office of Governor of Irkutsk region:

Yuri Abramovich Nozhikov (September 19, 1991 - April 25, 1997)

Vitaly Antonov Ivanov (the acting, April 25, 1997 - August 8, 1997)

Boris Aleksandrovic Govorin (August 8, 1997 - September 8, 2005)

Alexander Georgievic Tishanin (September 8, 2005 - April 15, 2008)

Igor Eduardovich Yesipovsky (November 22, 2008 - May 10, 2009)

Sergei Mikhailovich Sokol (Acting, May 10, 2009 - June 8, 2009)

Dmitry Fedorovich Mezentsev (from 8 June 2009 - 18 May 2012)

Sergei Vladimirovich Eroschenko (18 May 2012).

In 1994, the office of governor was introduced; in 1995, the office of governor was provisioned in the provincial statute. Since 2005, the governer has been appointed by the regional Parliament on the proposal of the President of the Russian Federation.

The number of voters in Irkutsk region - 1,878,631 (as of January 2015). Considering the number of voters, the top three are Irkutsk, Angarsk municipality and Bratsk.

In the region, 45 district election commissions and 1,890 precinct election commissions (PECs) are established. Approximately the personnel of 16 thousand persons is engaged in the work of election commissions of different levels, according to the regional election committee. The largest number of polling stations is shared by Irkutsk (242), Angarsk municipality (97) and Bratsk (93).

Alexey Petrov, ‘Golos’ regional coordinator in Irkutsk, Elections expert, PhD in Political Sciences