Big country, big vote: Russians choose governors & local councils in THOUSANDS of elections held on single day
The event, dubbed the ‘united voting day,’ is taking place in 41 regions throughout the country. A total of 18 of them, from Kamchatka in the Far East and Leningrad Oblast in the west, are electing governors through a direct vote. In two autonomies – Nenets and Khanty-Mansi Okrugs – regional leaders are selected by their respective parliaments.
Almost 9,000 election campaigns have been taking place in recent days and weeks, with a whopping 156,000 candidates competing for 78,000 positions at regional, local and municipal levels.
Hundreds of seats will be up for grabs in 11 regional parliaments and legislative assemblies across dozens of cities big and small, among them Kazan, Krasnodar, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Rostov-on-Don. Residents of five Siberian towns will be picking their mayors.
READ MORE: Communists & Nationalists poised to make gains in Russian regional elections, but Western-leaning liberals unlikely to prosper
A slew of smaller municipal votes are also happening on Sunday, along with four by-elections held to fill vacant seats in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma.