Smirnov After The War
Igor Smirnov won three further elections after 1991. On December 23, 1996, he took 72% of the vote against 20% for Vladimir Malakhov and on December 9, 2001, he took 81.9% of the vote against 6.7% for Tom Zenovich and 4.6% for Alexander Radchenko. On December 10, 2006, Smirnov was re-elected for a third time with 82.4% of the vote. His Communist Party opponent, Nadezhda Bondarenko got only 8.1% of the vote. Andrey Safonov, owner and editor of the Opposition newspaper Novaia gazeta got 3.9% and Renewal Party MP Peter Tomaily, standing as an independent candidate, got 2.1%. 1.6% voted for "none of the above" and 1.9% of the ballot papers were blank or spoiled. Turnout was 66.1%. None of these elections were recognized by the international community, which does not recognize the legality of the Transnistrian authorities and called for democratic elections for a self-governing territory within the boundaries of Moldova.
In the December 2011 elections, Igor Smirnov came in third with 24.82% of the vote. He trailed the chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Anatolii Kaminskii, and the former chairman of that body, Evgenii Shevchuk. In the election, leaders of United Russia, the ruling political party of Russia, voiced a lack of confidence in Smirnov and supported the campaign of Anatolii Kaminskii.
Smirnov has announced that he will retire from politics when the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic obtains international recognition as a sovereign state and has called this goal his life's work.
His last vice president was Aleksandr Ivanovich Korolyov.
Read more about this topic: Igor Smirnov
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