Sergei Sobyanin
October 16, 2010 (KATAKAMI/ RIA NOVOSTI) — The Moscow City Duma will discuss on Monday the date of voting on the candidacy of Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin for the post of Moscow’s new mayor, the Duma speaker said on Saturday.
“We have received all the necessary documents [on Sobyanin's candidacy],” Vladimir Platonov said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday proposed Sobyanin as the Russian capital’s new mayor.
Medvedev sacked long-serving mayor Yury Luzhkov on September 28, citing a “loss of trust.”
State media had previously accused him and his businesswoman wife of massive corruption.
Analysts say there is little doubt that the Moscow Duma will approve 52-year-old Sobyanin, who was head of the presidential administration under first Putin and then Medvedev from 2005-2008 and ran Medvedev’s presidential election campaign in 2008.
Direct elections for Moscow mayor and governors across Russia were scrapped in 2004.
MOSCOW, October 16 (RIA Novosti)
