.Critic tests Putin in Russian mayoral election
SOCHI, Russia (AP) - Foes of the Kremlin rarely get a chance to run for office in Russia, so liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov's campaign in this resort city's mayoral election Sunday has tested the willingness of President Dmitry Medvedev to open up the system.
In a recent campaign foray, Nemtsov, wearing faded blue jeans and black cowboy boots, clambered out of a van and bounded over to a few voters gathered on a street in Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Nemtsov listened to pointed questions from pensioners, joked with men and then argued with a man who insisted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin brought order to Russia.
"What order? Corruption, bureaucracy!" Nemtsov said, calling his accuser a government-paid heckler. "I'm asking you to stop lying."
Anyone challenging the candidates fielded by Putin's United Russia party must struggle just to get on the ballot in Russia, and Nemtsov's participation has added attention to the country's most prominent election since Medvedev succeeded Putin as president a year ago.
Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, provincial governor and national lawmaker, is the best-known of the six candidates. The election is being watched as a barometer of just how serious Medvedev is about making Russia a more open country.
The answer, Nemtsov and other opposition leaders say, is very little - at least in an election as crucial as this one for Medvedev's predecessor, Putin.
The mayoral contest is one that Putin and his party can't afford to lose - certainly not to Nemtsov, an outspoken critic who during the campaign called for moving some Olympic events to other Russian cities.
Nemtsov claims he was followed, his campaign workers detained and his leaflets seized by police. TV stations, newspapers and outdoor media companies refused to take paid campaign advertising, and at one point assailants splashed him with ammonia.
He and others claim the Kremlin schemed to ensure the victory of United Russia's candidate, acting Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, in a race for which there have been no independent polls.
Putin, an avid skier who made Sochi a second home when he was president, campaigned hard to secure the Olympics for the sprawling city that stretches from the Black Sea to snowy mountains. Its selection has transformed the dilapidated Soviet-era resort into a multibillion-dollar construction site.
In recent days, television channels aired a tape purporting to show Nemtsov taking money in exchange for his support for shifting the 2014 Games to South Korea, a charge he adamantly denied.
Sochi's police chief, meanwhile, accused an opposition candidate he did not identify - evidently Nemtsov - of recruiting foreign provocateurs to make trouble.
Nemtsov said the attacks show the government feared he might win. "The authorities are deadly scared of my participation," he said.
Just a few weeks ago, the race promised to be a political free-for-all reminiscent of the early years after the Soviet Union's collapse - before Putin and his allies consolidated control of the national media and clamped down on who can run in elections.
Only mayoral races remain relatively open, and some 25 hopefuls originally lined up in Sochi, including a former Bolshoi Ballet dancer, a porn star and Andrei Lugovoi, the one-time KGB officer who denies Britain's accusation that he used radioactive polonium-210 to kill a Kremlin critic in London in 2006.
Medvedev this month pointed to the Sochi mayoral campaign as a sign of democratic progress, calling it a "full-fledged political battle" in a newspaper interview. "The more such vivid events, the better for the electoral system and for democracy in our country," he said.
But several candidates dropped out, and others said they were pushed out. Billionaire Alexander Lebedev, a government critic, was stricken from the ballot by a court ruling that his filing papers were incomplete. Both Lebedev and Nemtsov say the ruling was part of a government plan to make sure Pakhomov wins.
"It's a dirty campaign even by very low Russian standards, because there's too much at stake," said Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion-turned-opposition leader. A Nemtsov ally, Kasparov joined the candidate at a meeting with voters in Sochi on Thursday.
"This election is not Nemtsov against Pakhomov - it's Nemtsov vs. Putin," Kasparov told The Associated Press. "Sochi is essentially Putin's capital. It's not just any city, it's his project, just as St. Petersburg was for Czar Peter the Great."
Nemtsov said that because of the media's "total blackout, total censorship" of his campaign, he had to rely on the door-to-door politicking common in many democracies but rare in Russia. He had little success.
Two campaign rallies Thursday drew just a few dozen people each, including children, journalists and hecklers.
Svetlana Fateyeva, 69, said she would "never vote for Nemtsov" after seeing negative reports, including one suggesting he did a terrible job as governor in Nizhny Novgorod. "I saw it on TV," she said.
MyWay
In a recent campaign foray, Nemtsov, wearing faded blue jeans and black cowboy boots, clambered out of a van and bounded over to a few voters gathered on a street in Sochi, which will host the 2014 Winter Olympics.
Nemtsov listened to pointed questions from pensioners, joked with men and then argued with a man who insisted Prime Minister Vladimir Putin brought order to Russia.
"What order? Corruption, bureaucracy!" Nemtsov said, calling his accuser a government-paid heckler. "I'm asking you to stop lying."
Anyone challenging the candidates fielded by Putin's United Russia party must struggle just to get on the ballot in Russia, and Nemtsov's participation has added attention to the country's most prominent election since Medvedev succeeded Putin as president a year ago.
Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, provincial governor and national lawmaker, is the best-known of the six candidates. The election is being watched as a barometer of just how serious Medvedev is about making Russia a more open country.
The answer, Nemtsov and other opposition leaders say, is very little - at least in an election as crucial as this one for Medvedev's predecessor, Putin.
The mayoral contest is one that Putin and his party can't afford to lose - certainly not to Nemtsov, an outspoken critic who during the campaign called for moving some Olympic events to other Russian cities.
Nemtsov claims he was followed, his campaign workers detained and his leaflets seized by police. TV stations, newspapers and outdoor media companies refused to take paid campaign advertising, and at one point assailants splashed him with ammonia.
He and others claim the Kremlin schemed to ensure the victory of United Russia's candidate, acting Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, in a race for which there have been no independent polls.
Putin, an avid skier who made Sochi a second home when he was president, campaigned hard to secure the Olympics for the sprawling city that stretches from the Black Sea to snowy mountains. Its selection has transformed the dilapidated Soviet-era resort into a multibillion-dollar construction site.
In recent days, television channels aired a tape purporting to show Nemtsov taking money in exchange for his support for shifting the 2014 Games to South Korea, a charge he adamantly denied.
Sochi's police chief, meanwhile, accused an opposition candidate he did not identify - evidently Nemtsov - of recruiting foreign provocateurs to make trouble.
Nemtsov said the attacks show the government feared he might win. "The authorities are deadly scared of my participation," he said.
Just a few weeks ago, the race promised to be a political free-for-all reminiscent of the early years after the Soviet Union's collapse - before Putin and his allies consolidated control of the national media and clamped down on who can run in elections.
Only mayoral races remain relatively open, and some 25 hopefuls originally lined up in Sochi, including a former Bolshoi Ballet dancer, a porn star and Andrei Lugovoi, the one-time KGB officer who denies Britain's accusation that he used radioactive polonium-210 to kill a Kremlin critic in London in 2006.
Medvedev this month pointed to the Sochi mayoral campaign as a sign of democratic progress, calling it a "full-fledged political battle" in a newspaper interview. "The more such vivid events, the better for the electoral system and for democracy in our country," he said.
But several candidates dropped out, and others said they were pushed out. Billionaire Alexander Lebedev, a government critic, was stricken from the ballot by a court ruling that his filing papers were incomplete. Both Lebedev and Nemtsov say the ruling was part of a government plan to make sure Pakhomov wins.
"It's a dirty campaign even by very low Russian standards, because there's too much at stake," said Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion-turned-opposition leader. A Nemtsov ally, Kasparov joined the candidate at a meeting with voters in Sochi on Thursday.
"This election is not Nemtsov against Pakhomov - it's Nemtsov vs. Putin," Kasparov told The Associated Press. "Sochi is essentially Putin's capital. It's not just any city, it's his project, just as St. Petersburg was for Czar Peter the Great."
Nemtsov said that because of the media's "total blackout, total censorship" of his campaign, he had to rely on the door-to-door politicking common in many democracies but rare in Russia. He had little success.
Two campaign rallies Thursday drew just a few dozen people each, including children, journalists and hecklers.
Svetlana Fateyeva, 69, said she would "never vote for Nemtsov" after seeing negative reports, including one suggesting he did a terrible job as governor in Nizhny Novgorod. "I saw it on TV," she said.
MyWay
posted by madtom at 5:43 PM
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