#6
Moscow Times
December 18, 2001
Tallying Up Weekend's Elections
By Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writer
Against a backdrop of high drama in the leadup to presidential elections Sunday in the Sakha republic, polls held over the weekend in three Russian republics and seven regions passed almost unnoticed.
The Komi republic's incumbent head, Yury Spiridonov, lost his third-term re-election bid to local legislative assembly head Vladimir Torlopov. Backed by Yabloko, the Union of Right Forces and the Kremlin, Torlopov got 40 percent of the vote against Spiridonov's 35 percent. Complaints of campaign regulation violations made the participation of Spiridonov, who ran one of Russia's richest republics for the entire post-Soviet decade, uncertain until the day before the poll, when the republic's Supreme Court confirmed his right to run.
In the republic of Chuvashia, incumbent President Nikolai Fyodorov was re-elected for a third term with 40.73 percent of the vote against Communist candidate and State Duma Deputy Valentin Shurchanov's 37 percent. Fyodorov, called "a consistent democrat" by many analysts, was former President Boris Yeltsin's first justice minister in 1991 and helped write post-Soviet democratic laws. Less than a year ago, he said he did not plan to run for re-election.
While in Komi and Chuvashia a simple majority of votes in favor of one candidate is enough, local laws in the western Siberian republic of Altai require a candidate to receive 50 percent of the vote for a first-round win — and the race there is far from over.
Agrarian party head Mikhail Lapshin and incumbent President Semyon Zubakin are front-runners after Sunday's first round and go on to the second round Jan. 6. An outspoken opponent of land reform, Duma Deputy Lapshin took 23.45 percent of the vote, while Zubakin received 14.9 percent, according to the local election commission.
Local legislative assembly elections were also held in the Altai republic and the Stavropol, Tyumen, Tambov, Tver, Tomsk, Leningrad and Moscow regions.
In the Leningrad region, incumbent speaker Vitaly Klimov and at least half the incumbent deputies were re-elected. At least two attempts to bribe voters were registered, and in one case a criminal investigation was opened, Interfax reported. Low turnout invalidated two referendums on construction projects.
Local legislative assembly elections also took place in the Moscow region, but the outcome remains undecided in 12 of the 50 districts due to low voter turnout. Overall turnout was 28 percent, just above the required 25 percent.