Russian Parliamentary Vote Seen as a Referendum on Putin
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Russian Parliamentary Vote Seen as a Referendum on Putin
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Putin's party is looking for a big win (1st, 2nd articles). Putin is
blaming the US for instigating a boycott of the election by European
observers (last item, BBC, Nov 26, 2007); the election will be observed
by at least 300 international monitors, not a huge number considering
Russia comprises 11 time zones. The US -- along with others, including
the peripatetic chess master Garry Kasparov, gay rights greoups, and
others, including the US, have objected to a new election law. -NYTr]
AP via Yahoo - Dec 2, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071202/ap_on_re_eu/russia_election
Russian vote seen as referendum on Putin
By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press Writer
Russians voted Sunday in a parliamentary election where the only
question was whether President Vladimir Putin's party would win a
strong majority of seats or a crushing share.
The election follows months of increasingly acidic rhetoric aimed
against the West and efforts, by law and by truncheon, to stifle
opponents.
A huge win for Putin's United Russia party could pave the way for him
to stay at the country's helm once his presidential term expires in the
spring. The party casts the election as essentially a referendum on
Putin's nearly eight years in office. Many of its campaign banners that
festoon the capital read "Moscow is voting for Putin."
"He's a good man. Any woman would love to see him in her house," said
Polina Amanyeva, 58, at a Moscow polling station where she said she
voted for United Russia.
Putin is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third
consecutive term as president in March. But he clearly wants to keep
his hand on Russia's levers of power, and has raised the prospect of
becoming prime minister; many supporters have suggested his becoming a
"national leader," though what duties and powers that would entail are
unclear.
He has said that a strong showing for the party Sunday would give him
the moral right to ensure that politicians in power continue his
policies. Recent opinion polls suggest the party could win up to 80
percent of seats.
"I'm sure that voters have determined their preferences and now only
have to come and vote for the party whose platform seems convincing,
vote for those people in whom you trust," Putin told reporters after
casting his ballot at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The dominance of United Russia provoked a fatalistic attitude in some
voters.
"I think the result was pretty much planned in advance. I don't know
who I'll vote for; I'll decide when I get to the booth," said Ivan
Kudrashov as he entered Moscow's Christ the Savior Cathedral for Sunday
Mass.
Alexander Mikhailov, 39, said outside a polling station in Moscow that
he wanted to vote for a "truly democratic party" and chose the liberal
opposition Yabloko because "there is no other choice."
In Moscow, about 15 gay-rights activists were detained at a polling
station after a protest in which they scrawled "No to homophobia" on
their ballots.
The voting started in the Far Eastern regions of Chukotka and Kamchatka
while Muscovites were preparing for bed late Saturday. It concludes in
the western exclave of Kaliningrad at 1 p.m. EST Sunday.
The vote is the first national ballot under new election laws that have
been widely criticized as marginalizing opposition forces. All the
seats will be awarded proportionately to how much of the vote a party
receives; in previous elections, half the seats were distributed among
candidates contesting a specific district, which allowed a few
mavericks to get in.
The new laws also say a party must receive at least 7 percent of the
national vote to get any seats " up from the previous 5 percent. A poll
by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center in mid-November showed
the Communists and two other parties hovering near the cutoff point.
Opposition parties, meanwhile, claim authorities have confiscated
campaign materials and that the managers of halls have refused to rent
them out for opposition meetings. Police have violently broken up
opposition rallies " most recently in Moscow and St. Petersburg last
weekend " and national television gives the parties hardly any coverage.
In contrast, Putin's speeches to supporters have been broadcast in full
and repeated throughout evening newscasts.
"The fact is, they're not just rigging the vote. They're raping the
democratic system," said chess champion and opposition leader Garry
Kasparov on Sunday.
Kasparov, who was jailed for five days after the Moscow protest,
spoiled his ballot by writing on it "Other Russia," the name of his
opposition umbrella group.
Sunday's vote "meets none of the criteria of a free, fair and
democratic election. In effect, it is not even an election," Andrei
Illarionov, a former adviser to Putin, wrote in a commentary for the
Cato Institute think tank.
Under Putin, Russia has become inundated with oil revenue, a nascent
middle class is developing and the war against separatists in Chechnya
has faded into sporadic, small clashes. Russia's newly assertive
military policy and inclination to taunt and criticize the West appeals
strongly to Russians who suffered physically and emotionally in the
early post-Soviet years.
Disdain for the West has been one of the dominating themes of the
election. Putin has called his opponents "foreign-fed jackals" and
warned that Russia will not tolerate meddling from abroad.
All those factors contribute to strong support for United Russia. But
with the competition stifled and the election result seen as a foregone
conclusion, some of the 107 million eligible to vote could find apathy,
inertia or simply the winter weather keeping them away from the ballot
box.
"It's clear that the current election will only stabilize the interests
for one man, who has already run the country for a long time," said
Musa Isayev, a 40-year-old resident of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.
There's no minimum turnout needed for the election to be valid "
another change from previous elections " but a low number of voters
could undermine Putin's claim that Russia is developing into a true
democracy, albeit one with only passing resemblance to Western
democracies.
Authorities throughout Russia's 11 time zones appear determined to
ensure a sizable turnout, through pressure, persuasion and even
presents. One region is offering young voters passes to pools and
sports facilities; another says new housing will be built in whichever
village shows the most "mature" turnout.
Teachers, doctors and other workers have complained that their bosses
are ordering them to vote " usually with the implication that they
should vote for United Russia.
With Russia showing an increasingly assertive military policy and with
foreign hunger growing for Russia's oil, gas and minerals, the election
is of strong interest overseas. But international organizations are not
able to watch as closely as they had hoped.
The elections-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe, regarded in the West as the most authoritative
assessor of whether an election is fair, canceled plans to send
observers. It said Russia had delayed granting visas for so long that
the organization would be unable to conduct a meaningful assessment of
election preparations.
Russia has criticized monitoring by the OSCE elsewhere in the former
Soviet Union as supporting protests that forced leadership changes, but
it denied that it was impeding operations in Russia. Putin claimed the
pullout was initiated by the United States in an effort to discredit
the elections and his government.
A total of about 300 observers from various international organizations
were scheduled to monitor the voting, including some from the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization of Russia, China and ex-Soviet Central Asian
republics.
[Correspondent Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report.]
(c) 2007 AP. All rights reserved.
***
AFP via Yahoo - Dec 2, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071202/ts_afp/russiavote_15
Putin's Party Eyes Landslide in Parliament Vote
by Sebastian Smith
Russians voted Sunday in parliamentary elections marred by fraud
allegations but likely to confirm President Vladimir Putin's popularity
and pave the way for him to retain power after leaving office.
Turnout was brisk, officials said, as voters braved icy winter
conditions to cast ballots across the world's biggest country and
energy exporter, which stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Baltic
Sea.
Eleven parties participated but polls predicted Putin's United Russia
would secure at least two thirds of the 450-seat State Duma, with the
Communists a distant second, and other votes divided between
Kremlin-friendly parties.
"I voted for United Russia. Life's gotten better under Putin," said
Mohammed Egemberdiyev, a 43-year-old plumber, after casting his ballot
at a polling station in central Moscow.
The election followed a campaign marred by accusations that the Kremlin
rigged the contest, using controversial new election laws and state
media to ensure victory for United Russia.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov said the election had been "the
toughest and least democratic" ever held in post-Soviet Russia and
there had been "numerous violations," ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
The main monitoring body of the Organisation for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) boycotted the polls, while Germany's
chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the White House expressed doubt over the
vote's fairness.
Putin, 55, who is required by the constitution to step down next year
after two Kremlin terms, heads United Russia's candidate list and says
victory on Sunday would give him a "moral" mandate to retain a major
role in the future.
This has fueled speculation that the ex-KGB agent is seeking to stay in
power, either through a new post or behind the scenes while a loyalist
takes over the presidency in elections next March 2.
In a pre-election speech, Putin warned Russians to vote for United
Russia or risk the "disintegration" of their country.
He also described as "jackals" his pro-Western liberal opponents, who
for the first time since the Soviet collapse in 1991 are expected to
win no Duma seats at all.
Huge revenues from energy exports, steadily rising living standards and
a restored sense of national pride following the post-Soviet trauma
have made Putin widely popular.
"United Russia has done a good job, everything is getting better," said
Vladimir Babikov, a 19-year-old navy conscript fighting to keep warm in
the biting breeze as he voted near Vladivostok harbour.
The Kremlin has rejected criticism at home and abroad of the vote,
calling it politically motivated and vowing that the elections would be
free and fair.
But the beleaguered opposition, ranging from liberals to the
Communists, charges the Kremlin with suppressing debate, dominating
state television, confiscating election leaflets and arresting
activists.
There is also mounting concern in the West, where relations with Russia
have become increasingly tense under Putin, who controls the world's
largest energy reserves.
"We have noticed the restrictions on the possibility for activists to
express their civil rights," Merkel told Deutchlandfunk radio on the
eve of the election.
A spokeswoman for US President George W. Bush said Friday: "We are
concerned that people would not be able to have the free and fair
elections that they deserve."
And ahead of the vote, the OSCE's specialist monitoring arm took the
highly unusual step of cancelling its observer mission, citing a lack
of cooperation from Moscow.
Putin, whose anti-Western rhetoric has steadily mounted ahead of the
election, in turn accused the OSCE of playing politics with backing
from Washington to discredit the vote.
Russian watchdogs reported the authorities were pressuring public
sector employees to vote for United Russia.
"We have seen a campaign of unprecedented pressure on the voters," said
Alexander Kynev at Golos, which receives EU and US government funds.
Former chess champion turned bitter Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov, who
spent five days behind bars last week for taking part in an
unauthorised anti-Putin protest, deliberately spoiled his ballot Sunday.
"These elections are rigged," Kasparov told reporters.
Early turnout figures were high at 35-40 percent of the 109 million
registered voters, Interfax news agency reported with six hours to go
before polls closed in the most populated western parts of the country.
Last polls close at 1800 GMT in Russia's Baltic Sea exclave of
Kaliningrad.
Copyright (c) 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved
***
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com
Russia Renews Duma Mandate
Moscow, Dec 2 (Prensa Latina) Russia left behind an agitated electoral
campaign that lasted three months and a 24-hour journey for reflection
before voting this Sunday for a renewed Duma.
About 108 million citizens with a right to vote, particularly 16
percent of swinging voters took the leading role at the polls.
TV programming only included Saturday the spots of the electoral
authority (CCE) with constant calls to vote, in a last-minute attempt to
convince voters who have remained distant from the national electoral
process, as surveys revealed.
The apparent calm in the Russian capital is combined today with a
strong police security deployment in subway stations, streets and
polling stations.
The Ministry of the Interior mobilized about 450 thousand police in
combat readiness and troops to keep order during today s elections.
Agents of the Federal Security Service took under their control the
surveillance of the Central Electoral Commission, located in the
residencial sector neighboring the Kremlin, verified Prensa Latina.
As for the parliamentary race, parties should go over the minimum of
seven percent of the votes to obtain a seat in the Duma.
After consultations in 2003, United Russia, Communist Party of the
Federation, Democratic Liberal and the then fraction Motherland
(Rodina), merged today with Just Russia.
It is precisely those groupings the ones that hold the electoral
preferentes, according to opinin surveys released the past week.
Anyway, the December 2 results will create the necessary political
ambience, be it because of the continuity of the present course, after
March, 2008 or because of radical changes.
ef oda PL-2
***
BBC - Nov 26, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7112904.stm
utin says US behind poll boycott
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of
pushing Western observers into boycotting Russian elections.
Mr Putin said the goal was to discredit the parliamentary election to
be held on 2 December.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has
categorically rejected the allegations.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has expressed concern at the
treatment of the opposition in Russia.
'Nonsense'
The OSCE's election monitoring unit announced earlier this month that
it would not attend Russia's election, saying Moscow had refused to
provide visas to its staff.
The OSCE later said it would send a delegation of European MPs - rather
than a full OSCE team - to monitor the vote.
Mr Putin said the boycott decision "was taken on the recommendation of
the American state department".
"The aim is to discredit the elections, but they won't achieve their
goal," he said.
"We will certainly take this into account with our bilateral ties with
this state," he added, referring to the US.
But a spokeswoman for the OSCE in Warsaw, Urdur Gunnarsdottir, called
Mr Putin's allegations "nonsense".
"The decision was not made in consultation with any government. It was
made on operational, not political grounds," Ms Gunnarsdottir told the
BBC.
"Our decision did not have the aim to influence the election."
The OSCE unites 56 member countries from Europe, Central Asia, the US
and Canada.
The organisation will be represented by the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly, which, together with the Council of Europe Parliamentary
Assembly, is sending about 100 MPs from member countries to Russia to
observe the 2 December parliamentary poll.
EU worries
The head of the European Union's executive arm, European Commission
President Jose Manuel Barroso, has expressed worries about a weekend
crackdown by Russian police on protests by opponents of President
Vladimir Putin.
"I was very concerned to see reports of police harassment and arrests
of politicians and peaceful demonstrators in Russia in the last two
days," Mr Barroso said in a statement.
"The right to free speech and assembly are basic fundamental human
rights and I very much regret that the authorities found it necessary
to take such heavy-handed action."
Police broke up an opposition rally on Sunday, arresting 150 people in
St Petersburg, including opposition leader Boris Nemtsov - who was
later freed.
Another opposition figure, former chess champion Garry Kasparov, was
arrested at a rally in Moscow on Saturday.
(c) BBC MMVII
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date: Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:19:38 GMT
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