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| 'National leader': A new group has collected 30 million signatures calling for President Vladimir Putin to stay on. Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters |
Russian vote may help Putin craft his next role
The Dec. 2 vote is expected to bring his party a sweeping victory.
from the November 27, 2007 edition
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Putin takes a dig at opponents
Putin appeared last week before a crowd of cheering, foot-stamping "For Putin" supporters at a Moscow stadium.
In a speech reminiscent of Soviet rhetoric, he slammed internal and external opponents who "want to see us disunited.... Some want to take away and divide everything, and others to plunder," Putin said.
"Unfortunately there are still those people in our country who act like jackals at foreign embassies, who count on the support of foreign funds and governments but not the support of their own people," he said, in a probable reference to the pro-democracy Other Russia coalition, led by chess champion Garry Kasparov and radical leftist Eduard Limonov.
Over the weekend, Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Limonov, and the probably presidential candidate of the liberal Union of Right Forces (SPS), Boris Nemtsov, were picked up by police as they took part in street demonstrations in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Kasparov, sentenced to five days in prison for leading an "unauthorized rally," was thrown to the ground and beaten with truncheons during his arrest Saturday, according to his assistant, Marina Litvinovich.
UR's support jumps to 67 percent
Though 11 parties are running for the 450-seat state Duma, Putin's UR has taken a commanding lead, jumping from around 40 percent support before Putin joined its ticket in early October to 67 percent in a mid-November survey conducted by the independent Levada Center in Moscow.
Other polls put UR's support lower, but none less than 55 percent. The only other group that looks likely to hurdle the 7 percent barrier needed for entry to the Duma is Russia's still-powerful Communist Party, which got 14 percent in the Levada poll.
"This election campaign is taking place under extraordinary conditions; there is nothing democratic about it at all," says Nikita Belikh, head of SPS, who was detained along with Mr. Nemtsov at a St. Petersburg rally of the Other Russia Party on Sunday.
The SPS, which includes many former Yeltsin-era Kremlin officials, were strong supporters of Putin when he came to power eight years ago but, by last week, had joined Other Russia in the streets.
In mid-November the party launched a Supreme Court challenge against Putin's participation in the Duma campaign, arguing that it broke Russian electoral law and created an "unfair advantage" for UR.
"Putin is using his official position [to boost UR] in the campaign," says Mr. Belikh. As president, Putin has enjoyed many hours of dedicated TV time, in which he has "dialogued" with Russian voters and chatted with UR activists, always boosting the "Putin Plan" for Russia – which happens to be UR's main slogan.
According to a survey by the independent Moscow-based Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, the president, the government, and UR were the focus of 97 percent of political news coverage on Russia's four main TV channels during the month of October.
"None of this [favorable coverage] is paid for by UR, but it's clearly election agitation under the law," says Belikh. Last week the Supreme Court rejected SPS's challenge.
Why he's so popular
But Putin's supporters say it's obvious that the man who has presided over Russia's breathtaking economic, social, and geopolitical recovery over the past eight years should remain at the nation's helm.
"Putin has been involved in strengthening the country, consolidating the people, and defending our national values," says Mr. Astakhov. He says there's nothing undemocratic about Russians supporting the return of their chosen leader.
"Putin came to our forum [last Wednesday] and he was very democratic .... He was among the people; he was greeted, embraced, kissed, shaken by the hand. It was very democratic."
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