DATE=12/15/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RUSSIA ELECTION OVERVIEW
NUMBER=5-45001
BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN
DATELINE=MOSCOW
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: More than 100-million Russians are eligible to
vote in Sunday's election for a new parliament.
Officials are now predicting a turnout as low as 50-
percent. V-O-A Moscow correspondent Peter Heinlein
reports the election has lost much of the significance
it was expected to have when the campaign first began.
TEXT: There is an old saying among Moscow political
observers that a week is a long time in Russian
politics. If so, four months can seem like an
eternity.
As the country heads into the final days of a
lackluster parliamentary election campaign, it is
worth recalling that, four months ago, the vote was
being touted as an unofficial presidential primary.
With an ailing and unpopular President Boris Yeltsin
out of the running, the Kremlin seemed in disarray. A
newly-formed anti-Kremlin coalition, linking former
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and the powerful
mayors of Russia's two largest cities, was seen as a
sure bet to become the largest bloc in parliament,
propelling its candidate into the favorite's role for
next year's presidential election. There he would
likely run against Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.
The only question was whether that candidate would be
Mr. Primakov or Moscow's ambitious mayor, Yuri
Luzhkov.
The prospect of an orderly hand-over of power from
Russia's first democratically-elected president to his
democratically-elected successor was hailed as a
healthy sign of the development of political parties
in this formerly one-party state.
But that was four months ago. In the intervening
months, the Kremlin launched a popular war in
Chechnya. The war's main architect, Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin, has shot to the top of the
presidential preference polls, and a pro-Kremlin
party, with Mr. Putin's support, has come from nowhere
to rival the Communists.
The Fatherland/All Russia bloc, meanwhile, under a
withering barrage of criticism from the Kremlin-
controlled media, has seen its popularity shrink to
single digits, far behind the leading contenders.
Political analyst Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow
Carnegie Center says the Kremlin has used the Chechen
war and the media as tools in a cynical strategy to
destroy its political enemies and maintain its
stranglehold on power.
/// 1st PETROV ACT ///
It seems to me that all this chain of tragic
events, starting with the conflict in Dagestan
and bombings in Moscow in the beginning of the
Chechen war, is exactly what was used by the
Kremlin to reshape totally the political
landscape in order to push away Mr. Primakov and
some other political forces in order to keep the
power.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Petrov says a dangerous process has been unleashed
in Russia, in which military and intelligence officers
are pushing aside legitimate political leaders in the
struggle for power.
/// 2ND PETROV ACT ///
Thus we are facing a very dangerous new
situation [in] that the role of the military in
society is increasing all the time, and the
respect to [for] the law, the respect to the
elections, the respect to the politicians is
declining all the time.
/// END ACT ///
// OPT // A random sampling of public opinion on the
streets of Moscow this week indicated an almost
universal skepticism about the elections. Many
people, like 51-year-old biologist Vyacheslav
Kalentchuk, say they see little point in voting.
/// KALENTCHUK ACT IN RUSSIAN, THEN FADE TO... ///
He says, "I think everybody is so tired of everything
connected with politics that nobody will be eager to
run out and vote."
Thirty-one-year-old public prosecutor Dmitry Khormach
says no one believes the elections will make any
difference.
/// KHORMACH ACT IN RUSSIAN, THEN FADE TO... ///
He says, "Those who have power will stay there, and
any newcomers will simply become like the old ones."
/// END ACT /// /// END OPT ///
If opinion polls are accurate, Russia's next
parliament will look very much like the old one,
dominated by Communists and nationalists, while hopes
for a blossoming of a Western-style democracy remain a
distant dream. (Signed)
NEB/PFH/GE/WTW
15-Dec-1999 13:14 PM EDT (15-Dec-1999 1814 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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