Activists of the STOP-SHIES coalition announced the beginning of the gubernatorial nomination among eco-activists. The initiators of the procedure decided to elect the “man of the people” as the head of the region. This was reported on January 20 in the STOP-SHIES coalition’s community.
Eco-activists of Arkhangelsk decided to collect applications from candidates until January 31. The initiators demanded that the future candidate meet the requirements of the law and share the beliefs of the community.
"It goes without saying that no one is going to open the door to the governor's office to the people's deputy, there will be a tough confrontation, administrative pressure, threats, dirty lies in the state-controlled media, and falsifications," the coalition warned.
According to the initiators of the nomination, the municipal deputies of Arkhangelsk Oblast will support the nominee of activists to pass the municipal filter. Activists called on all responsible federal political parties to support the future politician, and they do not want to see current governor Igor Orlov in the list of candidates for the head of the region. Activists demanded that the deputies of the regional assembly reduce the threshold of the municipal filter to 5% (of those who signed among representatives of the local government).
Activists want to vote for the nominee at the general congress of the STOP-SHIES coalition.
The authors of the initiative wrote that they had decided to do so in order to stop "crazy and corrupt" projects in Arkhangelsk Oblast against which eco-activists had already "used all legal methods".
Igor Orlov, the current governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast, was elected in 2015 when the voting turnout was 21% and slightly more than half of the voters voted for the winner. Political analyst Alexander Kynev told 7x7 that, according to his data, this was the lowest level of electoral support for the head of the region.
Orlov's political rating fell to a minimum in April 2019 when he called the opponents of the landfill at Shies "shelupon’" (‘rubbish’) after which the activists went on an unauthorized march along the streets of Arkhangelsk.
