Yury Pronin believes Sergei Levchenko is a completely new type of governor for Irkutsk Oblast, unlike many former regional heads, he has long been well known as a public politician. He says the vote cannot be reduced to protest alone, people knew who they were voting for, and Levchenko has been on the political stage for many years. The piece also recalls how Levchenko won in the second round of the election and that he had twice run for governor before, but lost to Boris Govorin.
Yury Pronin said on September 28 that an entirely new type of governor had come to power in the region, one the oblast had not yet experienced.“With the exception of Govorin, we got to know the heads of the region only when they were appointed. We did not know either Tishanin or Esipovsky. Mezentsev and Eroshenko were known only in narrow circles, and the latter was not a public figure. Sergei Levchenko is known as a public politician who has been in the spotlight for 20 years. I am not saying that everything will now be wonderful, it is just a new type that the oblast has not yet experienced,” Pronin said.
Yury Pronin also clarified that those voting in protest knew what they were getting into: “In my opinion, people did care who they were voting for; this was not a vote for ‘anyone at all.’ You understand, when Irkutsk residents chose Kondrashov, he was a real cat in a bag. In our case, Levchenko has long been on the political stage, there is an element of protest, but it is wrong to reduce everything to protest alone.”
As a reminder, Sergei Levchenko won the second round of the gubernatorial election in the Irkutsk Oblast against the region’s acting head appointed by the president, United Russia candidate Sergei Eroshenko.
In 1997 and 2001, Levchenko had already run for the post of regional head. In both cases, he lost to Boris Govorin. In 2001, the election was held in two rounds, and Govorin won by a margin of 2%.