Russia Profile
January 28, 2008
Churov Defensive About Kasyanov Explusion
Only a Defection of Candidates Could Hold Up the Election
By Dmitry Babich
In what may be the most pivotal day since President Vladimir Putin tapped First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as his successor, this Sunday the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) formally finalized the list of candidates for the ballot on March 2.
The four candidates who managed to fulfill all the requirements of Russia's complicated electoral legislation are Medvedev, Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, the flamboyant leader of the inaptly named Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and little-known leader of the Democratic Party of Russia, Andrei Bogdanov.
"We are doing everything for this election to proceed in an orderly, organized way like the parliamentary elections in December 2007," said Vladimir Churov, the chairman of CEC, at a meeting with journalists on Monday. "During the next few days, a drawing will decide the distribution of television airtime and newspaper space among the four candidates."
Candidates' access to mass media could be one of the reasons why the fifth possible candidate, former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, was not included in the list of candidates. Formally, the CEC declared 80,261 out of 600,000 voter signatures invalid. The 600,000 were examined as a sampling of the 2 million signatures Kasyanov presented in support of his candidacy. That amounts to a more than 13 percent rate of questionable signatures, more than double the acceptable rate of 5 percent. With that, Kasyanov's bid for the presidential candidacy was dismissed.
Officially, all independent candidates (candidates not supported by a party represented in the Duma) are supposed to present signatures to the Central Electoral Commission. The CEC then randomly checks 200,000 (10 percent) of the signatures, verifying the signatories' identities and addresses as well as the authenticity of their signatures. If more than 5 percent of the first batch of 200,000 prove to be invalid, another 200,000 are checked. In Kasyanov's case three batches were checked, with the shares of "suspicious" signatures oscillating between 10 and 15 percent and finally stabilizing at 13.38 percent.
Churov said that the amount of invalid signatures was the only reason why Kasyanov was not allowed to run and urged the former prime minister to appeal the CEC's ruling in Russia's Supreme Court, his last recourse in running for the presidency this year.
"Journalists could observe the process of Kasyanov's signatures' verification," Churov said at a press conference at the RIA Novosti news agency on Monday. He dismissed allegations of any bias against Kasyanov. Experts agree that, even if allowed to run, Kasyanov could not present a serious challenge to Putin's anointed successor Dmitry Medvedev.
Given this situation, it seems that the issue of media access was behind the decision of the CEC to be so unforgiving with Kasyanov's signatures. "The current administration generally does not allow an alternative, it is afraid of debate, and not even because it could lose, but simply because it does not want to take part in it," said Dmitry Oreshkin, the head of Mercator Group, a Moscow-based think tank specializing in analyzing Russia's elections.
Many experts believe that, as a former prime minister, Kasyanov has the potential to reveal many unpleasant details about his work with Putin if given access to the media. Unable to win, he could tarnish the image of his powerful opponents, the "dream team" of future president Dmitry Medvedev and his chosen prime minister Vladimir Putin.
"Knowing Kasyanov, I just don't believe he decided to run on his own," said Vitaly Tretyakov, former editor-in-chief of Nezavisimaya Gazeta and a veteran Kremlin watcher. "Someone very powerful must have asked him to do it. And this someone's aim is not so much to elevate Kasyanov as to downgrade Putin."
Kasyanov, who served as prime minister under Putin until 2004 and was seen as former President Boris Yeltsin's rearguard in his successor's administration, turned against Putin in 2005. The reasons for the quarrel are not immediately clear, since Kasyanov was not fired by Putin. His resignation was more or less a result of a planned cabinet rotation. However, soon after the announcement of Kasyanov's intention to run for presidency in 2005, the former prime minister became a flashpoint of symbolic attacks by the pro-Kremlin Nashi movement. Around the same time, Kasyanov disappeared from most television channels, although he occasionally still appeared on Ren-TV, which is known for its sympathies for Putin's liberal critics.
Kasyanov's expulsion from the presidential race is expected to cool the interest of foreign observers and media. However, Churov stood up to reporters' aggressive questions while declaring Kasyanov's chances dashed.
"We plan to invite about 400 foreign observers, including about 70 people from the Bureau on Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE," Churov said, referring to the group of election monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that boycotted the December Duma elections. "The members of the observer missions will be picked by the invited organizations themselves. Unfortunately, many of these people tend to be the ones who made a name for themselves denouncing Russia. We shall let our Russian people know who is going to visit us, so that our people could judge the validity of these observers' critique."
Churov added that the observers' assessments will 1have no immediate legal consequences for the election. Results of an election in one of Russia's 87 regions can be annulled only if clear and compelling evidence of fraud is presented.
"In this case a person or a group of persons guilty of such a fraud can be brought to justice as a criminal," Churov said.
In Churov's words, the presidential elections could still be postponed if all candidates except one suddenly take their names off the ballot, since Russian legislation does not allow an election without alternative. Boris Nemtsov of the Union of Right Forces and other opposition leaders have already encouraged Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov to annul his candidacy. However, the other "opposition" candidates, Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Andrei Bogdanov, are very unlikely to do follow Zyuganov's boycott, even if he should decide on such a move.