UNITED RUSSIA MUSCLES ITS WAY INTO STAVROPOL KRAY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 005432

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2017
TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM RS
SUBJECT: UNITED RUSSIA MUSCLES ITS WAY INTO STAVROPOL KRAY

REF: MOSCOW 1431

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

Summary
--------------


1. (C) In Stavropol Kray, United Russia has reasserted
itself politically and administratively in the aftermath of
the March 2007 elections, in which A Just Russia scored an
upset victory. United Russia has stripped the unpopular
governor of his party membership, replaced the independent
Kray Elections Commissioner with a United Russia lawyer, and
has allegedly engaged in harassment of other parties. A Just
Russia has been set adrift by the changes -- especially by
the decision of Putin to head the United Russia national
ticket -- and the head of their regional candidate list,
Stavropol Mayor Dmitriy Kuzmin, is reportedly "abroad" until
after the December 2 elections. End summary.

United Russia Reasserts Itself
--------------


2. (C) In Stavropol Kray, United Russia is seeking to avenge
the sole defeat suffered in the March 11 regional duma
elections (reftel). The United Russia leadership blamed
Governor Chernogorov for the defeat and stripped him of his
party membership. Boris Obolenets, local leader of the Union
of Right Forces (SPS),told us that the Kremlin had decided
to strip Chernogorov of his membership but to keep him on as
Governor. "They (in the Kremlin) could not remove
Chernogorov after the election because there would have been
pressure to replace him with a member of A Just Russia, since
they had just done so well in the polls. After December 2,
United Russia will claim victory in Stavropol Kray and will
surely replace the governor with one of their own."


3. (C) United Russia is pulling out all the stops to win in
Stavropol on December 2 and has distanced itself from local
politicians. Nationally popular Minister of Emergency
Situations Sergey Shoigu, who has no connection to Stavropol
Kray, was selected to head the party's regional list of
candidates. The Minister's plane was at the airport during
our visit, and Shoigu was campaigning throughout Stavropol
Kray without local members of United Russia. Vladimir
Trukhachev, the Deputy Head of United Russia in Stavropol
Kray (and also the Rector of the Stavropol State Agricultural
University),told us that the Stavropol branch of United
Russia had foreseen that Chernogorov (a recent defector from
the KPRF) would drag down United Russia at the polls, but the
party's central committee had unwisely overruled it and kept
the Governor on the March ballot. Now that he has been
kicked out of the party, he claimed, the people would be able
to fully voice their support for the plans of United Russia
without being distracted by "negative personalities." The
city was thoroughly covered with United Russia billboards
("Putin's Plan is Russia's Victory" and "We believe in
Russia! We Believe in Ourselves!"). In the center we saw
only one LDPR billboard and no signs at all for A Just Russia.

A Walk in the Woods with the Deposed Elections Commissioner
-------------- --------------


4. (C) United Russia also played a major role in overhauling
the membership of the Kray Election Commission (KEC). Viktor
Limanov, the former commissioner who had held the position
for 14 years, told us that "United Russia has turned the KEC
into an arm of the party." During the summer, the Governor
and Kray Duma (which was still dominated by United Russia)
named seven members each to the KEC, resulting in 10 from
United Russia, and one each from the KPRF, LDPR, SPS, and A
Just Russia. Limanov noted that his fate paralleled that of
Federal Central Election Commission, where Vladimir Churov
had replaced Aleksandr Veshnyakov, and that elections
commissions in other regions - notably in Karbadino-Balkaria
and Kaliningrad - had been similarly rebuilt. The new
Commissioner, Boris Dyakonov, refused to meet with us without
the permission of the Central Election Commission in Moscow.
Sergey Yerin, a representative of the Stavropol Kray
Administration, explained that Dyakonov was new to his job
and was still checking everything with Moscow.


5. (C) Limanov said that during the last election campaign,
his commission found several violations committed by United
Russia, including factory managers demanding that their
employees vote for United Russia. Limanov went to the
Governor (who was then head of the regional party list) with
evidence and told him that if these activities did not cease,
the elections commission would take action against United
Russia in court. The governor denied that the violations
were taking place, and implied that Limanov could lose his
job if he persisted. Although Limanov was willing to talk

MOSCOW 00005432 002 OF 002


freely with us ("I'm retired now, so what can they do to
me?") he was obviously concerned, and asked that we meet with
him in the middle of a local park.

KPRF vs. A Just Russia
--------------


6. (C) Viktor Goncharev, leader of the Communist Party (KPPF)
fraction in the regional duma and head of the regional KPRF
candidate list, told us that Putin's decision to head the
United Russia national list would result in an additional
three percent of the vote for the KPRF. "This decision
completely invalidated A Just Russia's slogans about being
'for Putin but against United Russia'." He expects that
voters from A Just Russia will be divided between supporters
of Putin and supporters of the ideals of social justice. A
Just Russia, he said, knows that they cannot fight United
Russia, "so they have headed onto our turf." As an example,
he gave us samples of A Just Russia's campaign materials that
featured the slogan "We are from the USSR!" with the initials
formed by "Union of Supporters of Spravedlivaya Rossiya (A
Just Russia)." Goncharev said that the KPRF goal in
Stavropol Kray was 20 percent, but they needed at a minimum
12 percent to get local members into the State Duma.


7. (C) A Just Russia's seven-member local slate is headed by
Mayor Kuzmin, and includes his brother Aleksandr and a
possibly-related Alla Kuzmina. Goncharev said that the KEC
had already warned A Just Russia about violating campaign
laws (for allegedly "bribing" voters with bottled water and
other campaign give-aways),and that another violation could
result in their removal from regional ballot. Obolonets and
Goncharev both noted that Mayor Kuzmin had reportedly left
the region "for abroad" and was not expected back before the
election. We were unable to verify this with representatives
of A Just Russia, who cited the press of their campaign
activities in refusing to meet with us.

Claims of United Russia Harassment
--------------


8. (C) SPS's Obolonets claimed that United Russia and its
supporters now had free rein to play dirty tricks. During
the March elections, he said, SPS had no problems
campaigning, but now SPS and other parties were being
targeted. He told us that the SPS offices had been spray
painted and that someone had thrown tin cans full of
foul-smelling liquid through its office windows. While we
were meeting, he received a call from his assistant that
their office windows had been smashed overnight. Obolonets
said that other parties were also being harassed. For
example, A Just Russia had been the target of a smear
campaign posters alleging that many members of the party had
AIDS, and that A Just Russia would force employers to hire
people with AIDS as part of its "fairness" policy. Obolonets
claimed that both the vandalism and the smear campaign were
orchestrated by United Russia and carried out by its youth
groups Molodaya Gvardiya and Nashi. Limanov said that he had
heard of some of these problems and that the KEC was turning
a blind eye to them. "They see A Just Russia handing out
bottled water, but they miss United Russia throwing bricks
through windows."

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


9. (C) The climate in Stavropol has changed for the worse
since we last visited. With the replacement of Limanov and
his associates, who had prided themselves on running fair and
open elections, the playing field now seems tilted towards
United Russia. United Russia is focusing a large amount of
resources in the region in an attempt to win big. By sending
Shoigu -- who has been in Kommersant's list of the top ten
most influential people in Russia for the past six years --
to head the regional list, United Russia is showing that it
has little faith in the local leaders but that it is not
willing to write off any region that might spoil its claim to
unanimous support throughout the country.
BURNS