Sobyanin registers to run for Moscow mayor

Sergei Sobyanin file photo

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – June 17, 2013) Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has registered with the Moscow Election Commission as a candidate for the upcoming mayoral elections scheduled for September 8.

Sobyanin, who officially resigned from his post earlier this month in order to stand for mayor, will be running as an independent candidate, meaning that he will have to get at least 73,000 signatures from potential voters and 110 signatures from municipal deputies.

The first meeting of his campaign staff has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 18, his campaign chief, Lyudmila Shvetsova, told RIA Novosti.

Sobyanin, who became mayor in fall 2010 after his long-time predecessor Yuri Luzhkov was sacked, has presided over a spate of anti-government protest activity in Moscow. He pledged on Monday to ensure that his elections are clean and fair.

“One of the first things on the agenda of the campaign staff is to develop a general memorandum on fair mayoral elections in Moscow, for all candidates to sign,” Sobyanin said at the Election Committee after submitting his documents, RIA Novosti reported.

So far, 10 candidates have registered to run for Moscow mayor. Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption blogger turned opposition leader who is facing trial on embezzlement charges in Kirov, filed his registration documents on Saturday.

Sergei “Pauk” Troitsky, the leader of the punk metal group Korrozia Metala, has also registered. “Pauk” is Russian for “spider.”

Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko party, and Duma deputy Mikhail Degyarev, of the nationalist LDPR, also filed their registration documents on Saturday.

Svetlana Peunova, leader of the Volya (Will) party, became the first candidate to register on Friday.

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