Moscow vote mirrors a nationwide dispute

Sophia Kishkovsky

Elections to the Moscow Duma, the capital's city council, have set off a round of intense politicking and intrigue that have political operatives on all sides scrambling and opponents of President Vladimir Putin charging that this could be democracy's last stand in Russia.

The elections to the 35-seat Duma, scheduled for Dec. 4, are "an important political event for the entire country," a painstakingly assembled coalition of democracy advocates warned in Moscow this month.

Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of Yabloko, the largest party in the coalition, told a news conference that the Moscow vote would be "directly related to the elections in 2007 and 2008" for a new State Duma, or national Parliament, and a new president, respectively. It is a measure of the seriousness of their concern that Russia's fractious liberal opposition parties managed to unite before the Moscow voting. They intend to pursue a national alliance that might help them win back seats in the State Duma, from which they were shut out two years ago.

As the Moscow elections approach, Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the city's powerful boss for the past 13 years, is not the primary focus of debate; he is not even up for re-election.

The issue is rather one that is facing Russians nationwide: Who gets to choose the leaders, voters or legislative bodies? The question goes to the heart of what some analysts see as backsliding toward Soviet-era practices during Putin's presidency.

Last year, Putin instituted a phasing out of direct elections for regional leaders; Kremlin-filtered leaders are to be installed instead. The change has thrust the City Duma into the spotlight by eliminating direct mayoral elections in Moscow; it gives the council that is about to be elected the power to choose the next mayor in 2007, or at least to approve the Kremlin's choice.

"These might be the last democratic elections in Russia," said Ivan Novitsky, a mild-mannered veteran of the Moscow Duma who is the lead candidate on Moscow's united opposition slate. "If the capital doesn't support democratic elections, what can we say of the rest of the country?"

Local legislatures nationwide are increasingly stacked with members of United Russia, the pro-Putin political party that also controls the State Duma. In Moscow, Luzhkov, 69, who is expected to retire when his term expires in 2007, is angling to ensure a loyal successor.

Luzhkov is heading the United Russia ticket in an effort to lure votes. The ticket is also making use of other recognizable names, those of actors, university rectors, federal legislators and even a cosmonaut - people viewed as unlikely actually to serve on the council.

Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the State Duma and a leader of United Russia, has said that the party hopes to win all 35 seats, although by law at least one other party must be represented on the City Duma.

The Moscow election is being watched as a scene-setter for 2007 and, especially, 2008, when the Kremlin is expected to engineer a succession to Putin, who will have been in office eight years. This prospect was on the mind of many observers last week when Putin appointed Dmitri Medvedev, one of his closest aides, to a top cabinet post and made Sergei Ivanov, the defense minister, a deputy prime minister. Pundits are pointing to both men as possible heirs.

Against this larger backdrop, Yabloko has joined forces in the current Moscow campaign with the business-oriented Union of Right Forces and smaller parties like Green Russia and the Party of Soldiers' Mothers.

"The results of this election," they warned in a statement Nov. 1, "will determine whether society has a chance to resist the restoration of a nomenklatura bureaucratic state" - a country run by an appointed ruling elite rather than by democratically elected representatives.

In its platform, the coalition is demanding a return to direct mayoral elections for Moscow and the restoration of direct elections across Russia.

At present, the coalition parties have just three seats in the City Duma. Several of their deputies have jumped ship to United Russia.

"Those who want to make a career are joining them," said Yevgeny Bunimovich, a bearded math teacher and poet who is now the lone Yabloko deputy in the City Duma. "Before, people joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Now they join United Russia."

Bunimovich said he had been denied access to local district television channels during the campaign.

"There will be falsification," Yavlinsky said of the Moscow election in an interview at his party headquarters in an elegant prerevolutionary mansion.

Some articles in the Moscow press have suggested that the Kremlin wants to remove Luzhkov before 2007 and transfer a federal cabinet minister or an ally of Putin from St. Petersburg to the Moscow office before the 2008 presidential elections.

Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov, a member of the United Russia faction in the City Duma, scoffed at the notion.

"Putin would never get rid of Luzhkov; he would have to be a complete idiot to do this," Moskvin-Tarkhanov said in his icon-filled office, where he holds a weekly Bible study session. "Revolutions start in the capital. Everyone understands this. The capital must be completely calm."

He also said that United Russia is not as monolithic as it might seem in the Moscow City Duma, where some deputies are more loyal to Luzhkov than to the Kremlin.

Luzhkov is revered by average Muscovites, even those who laugh at his bumptiousness or deride his billionaire wife's business dealings, because he has used the city's vast wealth to maintain many of the Soviet-era social benefits that have been cut elsewhere in Russia. By some estimates, about 80 percent of the country's money flows through Moscow.

The wild card in the current election is Rodina, a nationalist party that was also the spoiler in the 2003 State Duma elections. It is basing its campaign on a drive against illegal migrant workers, who are becoming an increasing source of tension in Moscow.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/22/news/duma.php

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