Penza, 9 June 2015. PenzaNews. The candidates for the gubernatorial primaries of the United Russia party in the Penza region met with the electors of the Leninsky and Pervomaisky areas of the city at the youth center on Tuesday, June 9.

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The first to make his speech was Nikolai Kotov, chairman of the Penza region workers unions federation and co-chairman of the regional headquarters of the All-Russia People’s Front (APF).

Speaking of the main areas of his program, he said the region is a beneficiary one, which is a determining point of its development strategy.

“Our task is to plan the budgetary policy of the region to ensure it develops using the currently available resources,” Nikolai Kotov said.

He was followed by Vladimir Podobed, the chairman of the Penza Chamber of Commerce and Indistry, the secretary of the regional Civic Chamber, who said he sees no need to create new development programs for the Penza region and explained the reasoning behind this opinion.

“People made quite a number of plans and programs for many areas of life in our region. They were created by professionals who took into account the tasks at hand and the abilities our region has. Here I am holding the list of state programs in the Penza region – a total of 21 of them, 12 added within last two years. […] If they were followed, we would have a lot less issues in our lives,” Vladimir Podobed said, stressing the importance for the new head of the region to “evaluate the situation, set the priorities and use the resources correctly.”

In his turn, Alexander Spiryagin, head of the Kolyshley area administration, noted that budget deficit is one of the key issues at hand in the regional municipalities, and offered a set of definitive steps to improve the situation, bringing up the examples of the work he had done in the area to back up the words.

The next to speak was Ivan Belozertsev, the acting governor of the Penza region and the secretary of the regional United Russia office, who said he thinks such meetings to be most useful, as the governors-to-be are able to discuss their visions with the citizens and correct their programs as they see necessary.

“The current economy situation really is very tough. You know that well. Even though we’d rather say it in a different way, we all understand we have an economy crisis at hand,” Ivan Belozertsev pointed out.

He added that his vision includes such priority tasks as creation of new jobs, support of industry and agriculture, and work with the issues in education, healthcare and urban amenities.

The speech of Ivan Belozertsev was followed by a Q&A session. People were asking questions first on their own, and then through notes read by the event moderator Alexander Gulyakov, regional Legislative Assembly deputy and Penza State University principal. Many of the questions were formulated as suggestions to resolve the current issues.

More than 90 minutes after the start of the event, the voters were asked to cast their support in favor of one or more candidates, but no more than three at once.

Overall, Ivan Belozertsev was the first with 359 votes in his favor, followed by Alexander Spiryagin with 95 voters, Vladimir Podobed with 89, and Nikolai Kotov with 87.