Penza, 12 August 2015. PenzaNews. The election of the governor of the Penza region, scheduled for September 13, will be more honest than in 2012, when, during voting for deputies of the regional Legislative Assembly when various violations were registered. Such an opinion was expressed by Yuri Afonin, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture, Sport and Youth Affairs, member of the presidium and secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party during a meeting with journalists in the press center of PenzaNews agency on Wednesday, August 12.

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“Indeed, those elections were very difficult. We did not expect that the day of the vote would actually turn into a number of law violations. You do remember the official requests. I still keep the “little scribble” from the commission chairman when she tried to remove me,” he said about the event of three years ago.

Yuri Afonin noted that he personally informed Vladimir Churov, chairman of the Central Election Commission, about the situation in the Penza region.

“I think the time has changed. I believe that these elections should be more honest and transparent,” the Communist said.

According to him, the opponents of the Communist Party should not ironically accept the words that the elections could be won by the candidate from a party outside the United Russia.

“At the plenum, we have recently heard a bright performance [by Novosibirsk Communist leader] Anatoly Lokot, who in a tough fight, due to the fact that he monitored the elections and presented a good program, was elected mayor, and works very effectively. Novosibirsk has become the leader in terms of housing commission and a number of other indicators. Therefore, we hope for common sense,” the deputy of the State Duma of Russia said.

He added that this opinion is shared by the acting governor of the Penza region, Ivan Belozertsev, with whom he had previously met in the regional government.

“We agreed on the fact that everyone is interested — he, as acting governor, our party, and the other parliamentary parties — in honest, transparent and quiet elections,” Yuri Afonin noted.

He said that during the meeting with the party activists in Nikolsk, nothing alarming was noticed.

“There is no trend to the fact that someone is going to fight tough — in the style of previous years and previous leaders — during the electoral activities. On the other hand, we have to be strong, confident, which is why in the next tow weeks we are meeting with all the regional offices of the party not having their major elections, in order to have them here to observe, help control the electoral actions. And specific election districts which we have talked about, will have very good, qualified lawyers, observers,” the member of the presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party said.