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Moscow News
www.MoscowNews.ru
October 12, 2009
Luzhkov’s hollow victory
By Roland Oliphant
RussiaProfile.org

Sunday's Moscow City Duma elections produced a predictable landslide victory for Mayor Yury Luzhkov, with only three Communists expected to win seats for the opposition as preliminary estimates showed a 66 per cent vote for United Russia.

But although the campaign was fought fiercely, with opposition parties of all stripes complaining of foul play by City Hall, a low turnout of 34 per cent showed that most Muscovites were convinced that the election was only an "imitation" of a contest, that their vote would change nothing, and that the City Duma was pretty irrelevant anyway.

The opposition parties' complaints about "information blackouts," United Russia's domination of the airwaves and billboard space, and dodgy decisions by the City Election Commission (which denied Boris Nemtsov's Solidarnost opposition movement a single candidate on the ballot) could have come from any election in Russia in the past several years.

This time, however, the complaints of the liberal opposition came against a background of personal enmity between their leaders and Luzhkov. Late last month he announced that he would sue Leonid Grozman for libel, after the Right Cause leader blamed the mayor for the level of corruption in the Russian capital. He has already filed a lawsuit against Nemstsov, who published a report on his web site detailing the alleged links between Luzhkov and his wife Yelena Baturina's business success.

Whether or not Nemtsov's allegations are true, the allegations about possible corruption are widely known amongst the Moscow public.

Not that it greatly matters. Muscovites are firmly convinced that it is Luzhkov, and not the City Duma, that runs the city, and they are apparently content with how he does it. This contributes to a sense that the current elections are not only a farce, but irrelevant.

The Levada Centre, an independent polling agency, found that 62 per cent of Muscovites believed that the contest was only "an imitation of a fight".

While Muscovites care about their mayor far more than about their Duma, Luzhkov is strangely popular, even among the opposition parties.

"He is better than some other governors," Communist Party deputy leader Ivan Melnikov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta, although he added that Luzhkov had led the city into a dead end.

Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin has said he did not want to see Luzhkov removed, as he would only be replaced by a more malleable Kremlin nominee.

Since the City Duma is meant to confirm the candidacy of whoever the president chooses as mayor, Luzhkov would have a reason to fight the Duma campaign hard if he were unpopular. And his ratings have slipped, though not disastrously.

According to data from the Levada Centre, Luzhkov's ratings have slowly declined over the past decade. In the last month, 36 per cent of Muscovites had a "good" impression of Luzhkov, down from 65 per cent in 2001 and 41 percent as recently as March.

The Levada Centre data shows that more people have an indifferent (42 per cent) than negative (18 per cent) impression of Luzhkov. The low turnout came despite Deputy Mayor Valery Vinogradov claiming last week that "there is not a person in Moscow who does not know about the elections".

The low turnout is not necessarily simply due to apathy.

"Since not a single independent candidate has been allowed to run, the independents have already lost. And their supporters aren't going to vote," said Dmitry Katayev, who is running as a candidate from Yabloko.

But there is a more fundamental point. According to the Levada poll, only about a third of Muscovites believe the Duma has any kind of decision-making power, and 72 per cent believe that real power lies with the mayor.

"Personally, yes, I think the situation in Moscow would improve with a new mayor," said Katayev, who described his position on Luzhkov as "closer to Solidarnost," who opposes him openly, than to his party leader's tactical support for the mayor in the face of Kremlin pressure. "But new isn't the point. The main thing is that the mayor should be elected."
Katayev said that were there a mayoral election now, Luzhkov or someone from his team would probably win. But even that would be an improvement, he said. "It's a normal democratic process, and I'm sure sooner or later we'll return to electing governors."

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