Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07MOSCOW5355
2007-11-10 08:39:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

OPPOSITION LAMENT ON RULING PARTY TACTICS

Tags:  PGOV KDEM PHUM SOCI RS 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO3682
PP RUEHDBU
DE RUEHMO #5355/01 3140839
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 100839Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5182
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 005355 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2017
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM SOCI RS
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION LAMENT ON RULING PARTY TACTICS


Classified By: A/DCM Alice G. Wells. Reason: 1.4 (d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 005355

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2017
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PHUM SOCI RS
SUBJECT: OPPOSITION LAMENT ON RULING PARTY TACTICS


Classified By: A/DCM Alice G. Wells. Reason: 1.4 (d).


1. (C) Summary: Just Russia (SR) candidate and Duma Deputy
Aleksey Mitrofanov detailed for us how regional leaders, in
their efforts to engineer a mandate for the Putin-led United
Russia party, were using administrative resources and other
tactics to thwart opposition political campaigns. Mitrofanov
confirmed press accounts that SR was being dealt with harshly
in St. Petersburg. In Penza, where Mitrofanov runs the SR
campaign, all local television stations have cited "force
majeure" in canceling agreements to run SR ads and all local
firms have refused to display the party's campaign banners.
Mitrofanov dismissed recent efforts to build momentum for
Putin to become Russia's "national leader" after his term
ends, as part of the United Russia party's "clueless"
campaign. He predicted that Putin himself would engage
personally and very publicly in the days before the December
2 Duma elections in order to move United Russia's take of the
vote closer to the 70 percent mark. End summary.

Regional Pressure
on All Other Parties
--------------


2. (C) In a November 9 meeting, Just Russia (SR) candidate
and Duma Deputy Aleksey Mitrofanov described obstacles
encountered as he attempted to mastermind his party's
campaign for votes in the December 2 Duma elections in the
Penza region. (Note: Mitrofanov, one of the better known
politicians in Russia, left Vladimir Zhirinovskiy's LDPR as
the parties were organizing for the fall campaign, allegedly
because he thought the long-term prospects of a
personality-driven party were not good.) In the seventeen
years he had been involved in politics, Mitrofanov said he
had not encountered such active interference from local
authorities. He did not believe that the campaign against
the "opposition" political parties was centrally directed.
He suspected that the regions believed that they had to
deliver about 70 percent of the vote to United Russia (YR),
and that they were going about that task in "their usual
primitive way."


3. (C) As an example of the roadblocks being thrown up,

Mitrofanov pointed to contracts signed for paid political
advertising with two Penza television stations. Both had
recently refused to honor their agreements, citing "force
majeure," which Mitrofanov took to mean the appearance of
Putin at the head of the YR list, and the failure of YR,
after an initial surge in the polls following Putin's
announcement, to further improve its ratings. (Mitrofanov
was not talking about the airtime allotted to each of the
parties free-of-charge by the Central Election Commission as
part of the official media campaign, but about additional,
paid advertising.) SR had also been rebuffed in its efforts
in Penza to find a firm willing to hang its banners. SR
would sue, Mitrofanov said, but with the vote only three
weeks away the damage had been done.


4. (C) Mitrofanov confirmed media reports alleging that SR's
campaign had been sabotaged in St. Petersburg. As reported
in the national daily Kommersant, during the night of
November 1 - 2, SR posters were removed from city buses while
the buses were in their garages and buses still affixed with
SR advertisements were not allowed to circulate around the
city. In addition, the responsible advertising agency told
SR that it would not honor its contract. SR efforts to file
suit were effectively sabotaged when the Directorate for
Combating Tax Fraud confiscated the computer servers of the
advertising agency. SR Chairman Sergey Mironov termed his
party's problems in St. Petersburg, "the crudest violation of
electoral law."


5. (C) Per Mitrofanov, SR is experiencing similar problems in
numerous regions of Russia, although not of the magnitude of
St. Petersburg. The Union of Right Forces (SPS) has had
large amounts of campaign literature confiscated, while LDPR,
the Communist Party (KPRF),and Yabloko have been victims of
regional leaders' enthusiasm as well. Mitrofanov thought that
SR, with its roots in the Kremlin, was getting the same
treatment as parties with less of an official pedigree
because some in the Kremlin thought that Mironov's
Chairmanship of the Federation Council would make SR less
pliant if it were well represented in the Duma.

United Russia:
No Ideas, Only Putin
--------------


6. (C) Mitrofanov ascribed YR's stalled campaign to the
party's uninspired leadership and the lack of a program that
extended beyond their success in affiliating themselves with
Putin. The lackluster campaign, he noted, had been the

MOSCOW 00005355 002 OF 002


subject of Presidential Administration Deputy Surkov's rebuke
of YR members earlier in the week. They had reportedly been
urged by Surkov to campaign more actively in the regions, and
not count on Putin alone to sweep them into the Duma. Later
in the conversation, Mitrofanov dismissed recent efforts to
generate a groundswell of support for Putin as "national
leader" when his term expires, as a YR campaign tactic.
"They know only Putin, Putin, Putin," he said.
(Not-so-spontaneous rallies calling variously for a third
term or for Putin to become Russia's "national leader" have
been held in Saratov, Volgograd, Rostov, Kaliningrad, Omsk
and, on November 8, in Moscow. Organizers project that on
November 15, the movement's initiators will assemble in Tver
region to launch a "For Putin" movement.) Putin, Mitrofanov
thought, had nothing to do with the effort, but would not be
averse to milking it if it showed promise. He described
Putin's approach to such efforts as "feng shui politics."
"He will arrange and re-arrange the furniture, until it
coalesces into a pattern that he finds productive."
Mitrofanov predicted that Putin would engage forecfully in
the waning days of the campaign in order to move United
Russia to the 70 percent victory mark.


7. (C) Campaign headaches notwithstanding, Mitrofanov thought
SR, KPRF and, just possibly, LDPR would cross the seven
percent threshold to representation in the Duma. (Note:
Polling continues to show Just Russia holding at four-five
percent of the vote.) He agreed with the common wisdom that
the Communists were under somewhat less pressure than the
other parties. Less interference, and the possibility that
the Communists would benefit from a protest vote, would
translate into more than ten percent on election day. As
evidence that the KPRF was getting the kid-glove treatment,
Mitrofanov pointed to what he said was the party's "Achilles
heel": its fat cats, among whom he counted Sergey Muravlenko
(USD 100 million),Svetlana Savitskaya (6 buildings, 5 cars),
and Zhores Alferov (USD 1 million). More media attention was
being given to the KPRF's historical legacy (Lenin, Stalin),
which has "no effect on Russian voters," than to the
accumulated wealth of its leadership, which if widely known
"would trigger mass defections from the party."

Comment
--------------


8. (C) Mitrofanov is the quintessential politician; cynical,
which is the Russian version of realistic. He left LDPR,
because he felt that the number of people who subscribe to
Zhirinovskiy's ethos of outraged nationalism and profane
disgust towards the status quo was declining with Russia's
increasing prosperity. He is used to the rough-and-tumble of
politics here, and has been on the receiving end in earlier
campaigns, so his surprise this time around is indication
that Putin's decision to dip his toe into politics has
created a tidal wave in the overeager regions.
BURNS