MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - A 37-year-old watermelon seller from Guinea-Bissau aiming to become Russia's first black elected official has competition from a builder of Ghanaian descent, Russian media said on Monday.
In July, media reports labeled Joachim Crima "The Volgograd Obama" after he announced his intention to run in the Srednyaya Akhtuba District election in south Russia's Volgograd Region.
A spokesman for Moscow Region-born Filipp Kondratyev, whose absent father is from Ghana and whose mother is Russian, denied that he had been put forward as a candidate in the district to take votes away from Crima, the Trud newspaper said.
Kondratyev registered last week for the polls, due to be held on October 11.
Crima, whose campaign slogan declares he is ready to "toil day and night like a negro," has attracted worldwide media attention.
