The main sponsors of United Russia in the last elections to the Yekaterinburg Duma were developers, one of them was the former deputy head of the city administration Evgeny Arkhipov, who was not allowed to become a candidate. A source close to the party leadership told URA.RU about this. According to the agency, the authorities have already begun to close “debts” to businessmen.
As URA.RU wrote, according to the results of the vote on September 9-10, United Russia received 41.87% of the votes – an unprecedented number – and received four “list” seats in the new Duma out of ten. Mayor Alexei Orlov, who headed the list, perceived this campaign as his own: in the absence of direct elections, there are no other ways to find out the real rating.
A source who participated in meetings of the city election headquarters said that the problem of financing was one of the key ones. According to him, in June Orlov’s political advisers allegedly told him that a high result for United Russia (Moscow set the target at 45-50%) would cost 100-110 million rubles. “Over the next one and a half to two months, Orlov was regularly reminded of this. He promised to solve it, but everything went very slowly,” shared a PR specialist who worked with one of the pro-mayoral single-mandate candidates.
Orlov allegedly did not want to go to the industrialists. Big business, at his request, nominated several of its candidates in single-mandate constituencies, financed them, and also helped the administration “buy” the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, A Just Russia and New People (these parties did not allow representatives of the billionaire hostile to Orlov, Vitaly Kochetkov, onto their lists ). In addition, preparations were in full swing for the 300th anniversary, where it would also be impossible to do without the support of patrons.
As a result, officials, through the efforts of the relevant vice-mayor Rustam Galyamov – already according to tradition – contacted the developers. They helped the administration in the elections to the State Duma and the Legislative Assembly in 2021, in the by-elections to the Duma and gubernatorial elections in 2022. A URA.RU source in the party emphasized that Galyamov also attracted money from builders during the May United Russia primaries.
“Five people responded to his request this time. In particular, Arkhipov. From June to early September they spent about 60 million [рублей]”, the interlocutor said.
From 2011 to 2017, Evgeny Arkhipov headed the Leninsky district, after which he was responsible for improvement at the mayor’s office. He was fired from the post of deputy head of the city administration in the fall of 2018, immediately after the elections to the Duma: the new government was purging representatives of the entourage of the ex-vice mayor and former vice-governor Vladimir Tungusov, who was declared persona non grata by Governor Yevgeny Kuyvashev.
Now Arkhipov manages the Construction Formula enterprise. In the spring, he wanted to return to politics, running for United Russia in one of the Lenin districts. Orlov supported this idea. However, Kuyvashev later crossed out Arkhipov’s name from the lists.
He is called a long-time partner of city authorities. “Arkhipov often helps with repairs of social facilities,” said a familiar municipal employee.
On June 23, the city commission on land use and development rules approved the “Construction Formula” project for the development of a site on the street. Volgogradskaya, 197. Three residential high-rises will appear there. At the time of publication, it was not possible to clarify with Evgeny Arkhipov himself whether he sponsored United Russia and, if so, whether the commission’s decision was related to this: he had not yet responded to the call and message in the messenger.
The names of the four other developer-donors are being kept secret. It is only known that they did not nominate their candidates for these elections. It is unclear how they will be repaid. Galyamov’s comrade in power suggested that it was “compressive development.” While another source said that it is not Galyamov who incurs debts to business, but business who returns them to him: “Galyamov has already done enough for developers – he does not slow down projects and does not take bribes.” The vice mayor himself was unavailable for comment on the afternoon of September 30.
In July, Orlov literally extorted another ten million rubles from the federal leadership of United Russia. This, of course, was not enough, they say at the mayor’s office. And they note that, for example, banners depicting Orlov and deputy Alexei Vikharev, which were paid for by the politician, “appeared (at the end of the month – editor’s note) not because of a good life.”
The total size of the EP fund thus amounted to more than 70 million rubles. According to rumors, political vice-governor Oleg Chemezov also helped raise some funds two or three weeks before the elections.
In the financial reports of the parties published on the website of the Lenin Territorial Election Commission (TEC), the main administrator of the elections, other figures are indicated next to United Russia – 10.3 million. The only sponsor (2.8 million) is the Sverdlovsk Fund for the Support of Regional Cooperation and development” of Legislative Assembly deputy Alexander Serebrennikov.
The LDPR, which took second place (14.6%), according to official information, spent 14.4 million. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (third place – 12.36%) – 12.5 million. The party’s sponsors are SZ Management Company Krasnolesye LLC ( 3 million) and Geopoisk LLC (2 million) of the developer Vladimir Konkov, whose grandson Stanislav Blokhin recently became a deputy of the Legislative Assembly from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. “A Just Russia” (11.14%) officially spent 15 million, the party was helped by LLC “Setstroy-EK” LLC (3.3 million), associated with the construction company “Pervostroitel”. Its representative, Denis Khavantsev, at the request of the mayor’s office, took second place on the SR list. The official budget of Yabloko (9.24%), which was financed by Kochetkov, is 9.6 million, New People (8.5%) is 11.6 million.
(source:ura)
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