Opposition can offer serious competition to party of power in Yekaterinburg and Voronezh – report

(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 21, 2013) The Foundation for the Development of Civil Society (FoRGO) predicts that United Russia candidates may win all gubernatorial elections on September 8 but the opposition can offer strong rivalry in mayoral elections in Voronezh and Yekaterinburg.

“We assume that that candidates nominated by United Russia or supported by United Russia will win in all (gubernatorial) elections,” head of the foundation Konstantin Kostin said at a Wednesday presentation of a report on the scenario of election campaigns and forecasts of regional election results.

Speaking of election campaigns in Voronezh and Yekaterinburg he said: “In the two cities the elections follow a competitive scenario and opposition representatives can offer strong competition to United Russia candidates. They are Yekaterinburg and Voronezh.”

However, this doesn’t mean that opposition candidates will definitely win, Kostin said.

“This does not mean that the authorities are surrendering cities, as one newspaper put it. It is true that in Yekaterinburg (head of the City without Drugs fund Yevgeny) Roizman actually has a high popularity rating comparable with the rating of (vice governor of Sverdlovsk region Yakov) Silin. But the voters who say in the media and public opinion polls that they will vote for Roizman won’t necessarily do the same at polling stations,” Kostin said.

“In this respect a low turnout may benefit Silin,” he said.

Kostin also pointed out to the high rating of Voronezh mayor candidate Galina Kudryavtseva representing the Green Alliance. However, the popularity of her United Russia rival Alexander Gusev is steadily growing.