NOVOSIBIRSK, April 06 /ITAR-TASS/. The Russian Communist Party’s nominee Anatoly Lokot is heading mayoral polls in the Russia Siberian city of Novosibirsk with 43.43 percent of the vote, the city election commission said on Sunday after counting ballot papers from 68.05 percent of voting stations.

His closest rival, the ruling United Russia party’s nominee Vladimir Znatkov is lagging behind with 39.9 percent of votes.

Eleven candidates are vying for the post of mayor of Novosibirsk: acting mayor of Novosibirsk Vladimir Znatkov (the United Russia party); lawmakers from the Russian State Duma lower parliament house Anatoly Lokot (the Communist Party) and Dmitry Savelyev (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia); Sergei Troitsky, the leader of the Corrosion of Metal group (Against All movement); Vladimir Anisimov, the former vice-governor of the Novosibirsk region (Russian Cities); Anatoly Kubanov, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk region (A Just Russia party); Alexander Tarkov (The Working Russia); Alexei Yuzhanin (The Party of Russia’s Spiritual Transformation); Sergei Ovchinnikov (The Russian Party of People’s Governance) and Roman Starikov (The Communists of Russia). Pensioner Yevgeny Loginov, representing the Russian Breakthrough movement, is the only self-nominated candidate.

According to the city election commission’s data as of 00:32 local time (21:32 Moscow time), Anisimov is scoring 3.32 percent of the vote, Kubanov - 2.2 percent, Loginov - 3.34 percent, Ovchinnikov - 0.41 percent, Savelyev - 2.51 percent, Starikov - 0.85 percent, Tarkov - 0.57 percent, Troitsky - 1.03 percent, and Yuzhanin - 0.54 percent of votes.

A total of 244,988 voters took part in the polls at these polling stations, or about 68 percent of the entire number of participating voters. As many as 1.9 percent of ballot papers were held invalid.

The early mayoral elections were appointed after Novosibirsk’s former mayor Vladimir Gorodetsky, who has occupied the post since 2000, stepped down ahead of time on January 9, 2014. He was appointed vice-governor of the Novosibirsk region on the same day. After the resignation of the Novosibirsk region’s former governor Vasily Yurchenko, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed the former Novosibirsk mayor as acting governor of the region.