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Town mayor candidate leaves United Russia

The United Russia party

One of the candidates in the upcoming city mayor election in Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, has left the United Russia party, because of what he sees as the regional party leadership’s bureaucratic and hypocritical policies.

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-The leadership of the municipal and regional branch of the party has lost contact with ordinary member, does not pay attention to their opinions and has a bureaucratic and hypocritical policy, businessman and town mayor candidate Aleksandr Temnyshev says, Kommersant reports.

-The United Russia in Karelia keep going only thanks to administrative resources and the authority of its leaders in Moscow, Temnyshev adds. He believes it will be far easier for him to have a dialogue and cooperation with other political parties and movements without membership in the party.

He still maintains however, that he remains a supporter of the ideas promoted by the party on federal level.

The city elections in Petrozavodsk will take place on 5 July.

United Russia has previously been criticized for its conduct in municipal elections. In Murmansk, the party was strongly criticized by former governor Yury Yevdokimov who described the party’s city election campaign as “dirty”. As BarentsObserver reported, those statements were a main reason why Yevdokimov was dismissed