Wealth: wild card in Russian election
Alexei Kondaurov is among a handful of wealthy businessmen trying to reshape Russia's Kremlin-dominated political landscape by injecting themselves - and their cash - into the picture.
As campaigning kicks off in parliamentary elections slated for Dec. 7, the role of rich wannabe politicians like Mr. Kondaurov has attracted a firestorm of controversy.
Many experts believe that it was the political ambitions of Yukos oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky - including his donations to opposition parties - that landed him in jail last month. Incidentally, candidate Kondaurov is a top executive of Yukos.
The Oct. 25 arrest of Mr. Khodorkovsky, and the expanding probes into his oil empire have unexpectedly focused the campaign on a potentially explosive, and politically energizing, confrontation between the Kremlin and big business.
"The election has suddenly become unpredictable," says Boris Nadezhdin, a leader of the Union of Right Forces (SPS), one of two liberal parties that have received extensive financing from the business community. "Previously hidden conflicts have emerged into the open, and now there is a real issue to fight the election on: Will Russia slide back into a police state or turn decisively toward the European model of democracy and human rights."
The race officially began Friday with candidates from 23 parties and blocs jockeying for 450 seats in the State Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament. But only a few parties are expected to garner more than the 5 percent of votes needed to enter the Duma.
It had been forecast by most observers as the first ho-hum post-Soviet Russian election, thanks to President Vladimir Putin's "managed democracy," the state's use of media control and legal limits on debate to avert political surprises.
But last month Russia's Constitutional Court, in a rare display of independence, struck down part of a media law that had banned reporters from commenting on election campaigns.
"The press was very afraid of that law, and of course it will be more open now," says Mikhail Melnik, head of the Center for Extreme Journalism, an independent watchdog. Still, he cautions that authorities still have many tools for pressuring the media. "It's just a small victory," he says.
As for the Yukos affair, it is possible that the Kremlin is orchestrating the prosecution not just to crush a wealthy challenger but to manufacture a popular campaign issue as Mr. Putin maneuvers to win a majority for his United Russia Party in the Duma next month and gain his own re-election in March.
A public opinion survey conducted by the ROMIR agency last week found that 54 percent of Russians had a "positive" reaction to Khodorkovsky's arrest, 29 percent had "no opinion" and only 4 percent were firmly opposed to the police actions. Many Russians angrily recall how the oligarch class got rich quick in the early 1990s by snapping up state assets in rigged privatization auctions - while most of the population sank into poverty.
The biggest likely beneficiary of public sentiment against big business would be the United Russia Party, led by state bureaucrats whose sole political program is to "support President Putin." With three government ministers and 30 regional governors topping its ticket, the party has reaped daily positive coverage in state TV newscasts and put its campaign posters in places forbidden to the opposition, such as the walls of Moscow subway stations.
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