The Nizhny Novgorod regional branch of the Yabloko Association consider it necessary to ensure that the gubernatorial elections in the Nizhny Novgorod region that will be held on July 15, 2001, are "honest and clean".

"A truly legitimate head [of the region] can be elected only through such elections," said Mikhail Tolokonnikov, the head of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko, in an interview with the Interfax-Eurasia agency on Friday, July 12, 2001.

He also noted that the activists of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Yabloko have repeatedly declared that they would support none of the candidates for the post of the governor.

"However, it would be a mistake, for which all the inhabitants of the region will have to pay for many years ahead, if people with criminal past come into power with the help of dishonest methods," said Mikhail Tolokonnikov.

The competitors for the gubernatorial post in the Nizhny Novgorod region are Ivan Sklyarov, the current head of the region; State Duma deputies Dmitry Savelyev, Gennady Khodyryev (CPRF), and Vadim Bulavinov; Nizhny Novgorod Duma deputies Ivan Kornilin and Dmitry Birman; Andrei Klimentyev, General Director of the firm OOO Kompaniya Parma; Vladimir Gryadasov, General Director of the firm ZAO Resursi-NN; Ardalyen Pantelyev, barrister of the Nizhny Novgorod Bar Association; Vyacheslav Kamensky, head of the department of the interior at the OAO GAZ automobile company; and Vladimir Koteryev, General Director of MUP Nizhgorodgorsvyet.

Based on Interfax reports.

See also:

Regional elections