"Northern Caucasus" issues

Primaries are a type of preliminary intra-party voting, when candidates are elected from party or political movement to participate in the main elections for positions in the legislative and executive power. Primaries were first held in the United States in 1842.
The decision on holding primaries for determining a single candidate from the «United Russia» party for the post of a Mayor (elections for which are scheduled for March 2010) was taken by the political council of the Rostov branch of the «United Russia» party on the recommendation of the supreme council of the party, as the political council secretary Natalia Kravchenko informed. This planned procedure may be called primaries only conditionally, since the election of a candidate will be held in a narrow circle of party activists. In such circumstances, only the current Mayor of Rostov, Mikhail Chernyshev, who is in this position since 1996, has the chance to become a candidate.
- From October 5 through 15 will be nominated candidates in the primary district party organizations and public organizations. Then in the course of district party conferences, from the list of proposed candidates will be selected 16 individuals with the highest rating (two from each of the eight districts of the city). For holding primaries, the political council of each district must assemble at least 300 members of the party. From all the district candidates the city's political council will choose two by secret ballot, and the city conference (scheduled for 27 October) - one of them. After that, he will have to be approved by higher party organs, and only when it happens, he will be nominated as a single candidate, - Natalia Kravchenko said. - This procedure is applied to in Rostov for the first time, - she stressed.