KASPAROV, KASYANOV'S OPPOSITION: LARGELY

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 004418 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/07/2017 TAGS: PGOV KDEM SOCI RS SUBJECT: KASPAROV, KASYANOV'S OPPOSITION: LARGELY IRRELEVANT Classified By: Pol M/C Alice G. Wells. Reason: 1.4 (b). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) The movements led by Other Russia's Garry Kasparov and ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov seem to have fallen prey to an inability to forge coalitions with colleagues similarly inclined to reject the limited opportunities offered by the current electoral cycle. Kasparov's Other Russia appears to have foundered on a lack of unanimity among the movement's heterogeneous coalition members, fostered by the lack of a consensus candidate for president. In spite of the publicity they generated abroad, the spring's "marches of dissent" failed to snowball into a genuine movement here. Lack of central media access and continued apathy across a broad swath of the population seem also to have taken a toll. Kasyanov's one-man campaign for the presidency faces many of the same obstacles --lack of central media access, constant harassment from a pro-Kremlin youth movement, and no support from potential confederates. The two movements' prospects, never better than bad, look, if anything, worse as the official campaign season begins. End summary. -------------- Subdued Kasparov Ratchets Down Already Low Expectations -------------- ¶2. (C) A subdued United Civic Front and Other Russia leader Garry Kasparov sketched for us September 5 a picture of his movement that suggested it was largely adrift, following Kasparov's controversial decision to back ex-central banker Viktor Gerashchenko's stillborn bid for the presidency. Kasparov acknowledged that his effort to promote Gerashchenko had met resistance from Other Russia allies Eduard Limonov and Sergey Udaltsov, and had provoked astonishment among those who had flirted with Other Russia, like Duma Deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov. In Kasparov's view, Gerashchenko's prospects had ended with Communist Party Chairman Gennadiy Zyuganov's success in winning Kremlin approval for his party, and in "selling enough seats" on the party list to quell all opposition to his continued leadership in the party's ranks. ¶3. (C) With Gerashchenko's eclipse, Kasparov acknowledged that he had become Other Russia's default presidential candidate, although earlier in the summer, Limonov and he had insisted that they would never run for office. Kasparov pegged his involuntary candidacy to "the will of the people" in Other Russia. The organization's regional "primaries" had identified him as the consensus candidate, although his formal nomination would have to await the movement's early September congress. ¶4. (C) Kasparov took some counterintuitive heart in the fact that plans to have the Russian translation of his book, "How Life Imitates Chess," unveiled at the September 5 - 9 Moscow Book Fair had allegedly been scuppered by pressure from the authorities. "It means they still consider me a threat," he said hopefully. He guessed that there had been resistance to his photograph being displayed around the grounds of one of Moscow's largest exhibition centers. Still, Kasparov thought that, in the end, the publisher would go forward with the book, if only because the profits it would realize through sales in Israel and the United States were too large to refuse. ¶5. (C) Kasparov had traveled to Chelyabinsk on September 4, where he had been met by a picket from the pro-Kremlin youth group "Young Guard." The picket had not disrupted his planned meetings with Other Russia adherents, but he worried that such harassment would become a permanent feature of the fall campaign season. ¶6. (C) Other Russia caucuses in the regions were to be followed by larger meetings in some of the more prominent regional capitals, such as St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. Kasparov thought it unlikely that ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov's organization would ally itself with Other Russia. Kasyanov's plans to stage a "March of Dissent" on October 7, the date of journalist Anna Politkovskaya's assassination and President Putin's birthday, struck Kasparov as "suicidal," and Other Russia would not sign on. There were no Other Russia plans to continue the marches that had caused so much controversy in the spring. Instead, Kasparov hoped to quietly augment his organization with defectors from, for example, St. Petersburg's Yabloko organization, and perhaps some of those who had been ousted in the Union of Right Forces' (SPS) purge of its Moscow organization. His earlier hopes that members of the Communist Party's social-democratic wing might work with Other Russia had ended. ¶7. (C) Kasparov held out some hope that Other Russia could attract political allies, such as Republican Party Chairman Vladimir Ryzhkov. Ryzhkov had told Kasparov September 3 that he had failed in his bid to be included on SPS's party list. (Ekho Moskvy Editor Aleksey Venediktov told us that SPS Chairman Nikita Belykh sought and failed to secure Presidential Administration Deputy Vladislav Surkov's approval to include Ryzhkov -- a move that was previewed in a press interview with the SPS's Boris Nemtsov. Surkov allegedly reacted to the proposal by telling Belykh that the media would be "closed" to SPS if Ryzhkov, a "traitor," was welcomed to the SPS fold.) That might make it more likely that Ryzhkov, and Duma Deputy Dmitriy Rogozin, who had similarly failed with his Velikaya Rossiya project, and would --in Kasparov's view-- not succeed in finding a place with his confederates on the "Patriots of Russia" list, would eventually join Other Russia. -------------- Kasyanov Flounders -------------- ¶8. (C) Kasyanov's Press Secretary Yelena Dikun was similarly subdued September 4, as she recounted continued harassment from the Young Guards. Kasyanov's crew had been met upon arrival at the Yekaterinburg airport September 3 by two cars of YGs who had strewn rakes in the path of their motorcade as they left the terminal. As has happened on previous occasions, the director of the hotel whose conference room they had booked canceled when they arrived, alleging that he had not known that the Kasyanov was involved in politics. Still, Dikun said, they had succeeded in finding a second venue, and held meeting, which was covered by the regional REN-TV and by a second regional television station. ¶9. (C) New to the Young Guard's tactics, Dikun said, was harassment in Moscow. Upon returning to the capital after their trip to Yekaterinburg, Kasyanov's crew had met with a similar reception at their Moscow airport. They elected not to publicize the harassment to the press in an attempt not to encourage the Young Guards. ¶10. (C) Dikun saw "zero" chance that Kasyanov would join forces with Other Russia. Their attempts to stage a "march of dissent" were part of an effort to give their campaign some street credibility. Dikun would not predict how many marchers might take part. ¶11. (C) With the onset of the campaign, the key task, said Dikun, was collecting enough signatures to get Kasyanov on the ballot. The sheer numbers, and cost involved, made success unlikely, she said. Further complicating their efforts would be close scrutiny of the signatures submitted for registration. Kasyanov's fall strategy was to "continue to travel" the regions and, evidently hope that the inevitability of presidential succession might prompt a dissatisfied electorate to look elsewhere. That, she admitted, was not likely, but "(Kasyanov's) campaign will not stop with this (presidential) election. -------------- Comment -------------- ¶12. (C) Kasparov as well made it clear that current unpromising circumstances were forcing him to take the long view of the struggle he believes he is waging. He made frequent reference during the conversation to the period following the inauguration of the new president when, he hoped, current levels of satisfaction would decline. In the meantime, it appears that the official political playing field, uneven as it is, is still attractive and acceptable enough to the majority of politicians interested in governing Russia. Burns