ELECTION COMMISSION SEEMS UNLIKELY TO GREENLIGHT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MOSCOW 000189 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM PINR RS SUBJECT: ELECTION COMMISSION SEEMS UNLIKELY TO GREENLIGHT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE KASYANOV ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Ex-Prime Minister Kasyanov's uphill battle to be registered as a contender in the March 2 presidential elections, seemed unlikely to succeed January 25 with the Central Election Commission (CEC) contending that 13 percent of the required two million signatures submitted were invalid, and Kasyanov's team insisting that many of the CEC-detected discrepancies have to do with the formatting of the signature lists presented and not with the signatures themselves. Kasyanov himself continued to insist that the decision to register his candidacy was political, not technical, and would be made at the highest levels in the Kremlin. Whatever the outcome, Putin nominee Dmitriy Medvedev remains positioned to easily best his three or four opponents in the election's first round. End summary. List Discrepancies -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Ex-premier Mikhail Kasyanov's presidential candidacy remained in doubt January 25, as the Central Election Commission (CEC) continued to maintain that an examination of the two million plus signatures necessary for a non-party candidate to qualify had revealed that up to thirteen percent of them were invalid. (The law permits no more that a five percent invalidity rate.) Kasyanov's team has contested many of the judgments about the signatures made by the CEC. Kasyanov aide Oleg Burmistrev told us January 25 that in fact only 200 of the signatures examined by the Committee had been found to be invalid. The other discrepancies discovered and used by the CEC to reach its preliminary conclusion that Kasyanov could not be registered were of a "technical" nature. The CEC, for example, had invalidated whole pages because the signature of the person collecting the signatures and the page date were written by different persons, or words like "district" were abbreviated on the petition; something that the CEC contended was not permitted. Legal Action -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Kasyanov has filed objections to many of the CEC's rulings which, according to CEC Secretary Nikolay Konkin, were under consideration and would be considered at its late afternoon session on January 25. Kasyanov's Russian National Democratic Union is pressing its leader's case in the courts as well as with the CEC. Kasyanov's official campaign representative Mark Feygin has initiated legal proceedings against the CEC, accusing it of having ignored its legal responsibility to inform voters of the campaign and it potential candidates. The court seems unlikely to support Feygin's contention. ¶4. (SBU) The CEC for its part has suggested that Kasyanov could find himself in court on the receiving end. The prosecutors' offices in Mariy El and Yaroslavl region have opened criminal cases alleging the falsification of signatures. Kasyanov's Mariy El campaign director Rustam Abdullin was arrested, but immediately released on his own recognizance after a criminal investigation was opened into his involvement in collecting allegedly false signatures. CEC member Siyapshakh Shapiyev has suggested that the Prosecutors' offices could make Kasyanov their target in those cases. Harassment History -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Kasyanov's long-running campaign has been the target of on-again, off-again harassment from pro-Kremlin youth groups like "Nashi," who at times have trailed the ex-premier as he has traveled the regions in search of votes and money. Calls from on high have occasionally caused landlords in the regions to renege on agreements to rent Kasyanov meeting space. In the initial period immediately following the December 2 Duma elections, Kasyanov's aides told us that the harassment significantly lessened, causing them to conjecture that Kasyanov may have been given a greenlight to collect the requisite two million signatures and campaign. The detention of Abdullin and the CEC's formalistic approach to his signature petitions suggest that they may be mistaken. ¶6. (SBU) The CEC is to make its formal ruling on Kasyanov's candidacy on January 27. Kasyanov and his aides insist that in the end the decision will be political, and will be made at the highest levels of the Kremlin. Burmistrev told us January 25 that he had heard from a CEC contact that the Commission has prepared two decision, positive and negative, and would announce one of them January 27. Long Odds MOSCOW 00000189 002 OF 002 -------------- ¶7. (SBU) Even if Kasyanov is allowed to join Communist Party candidate Zyuganov, Liberal Democrat Zhirinovskiy, and National Democratic Party Chairman Bogdanov in their quixotic attempt to challenge First Deputy Prime Minister Medvedev for the presidency, his candidacy will not register with the voters who, polls show, are poised to cast the votes necessary to hand President Putin's mantle seamlessly to Medvedev in election round one on March 2. The Kremlin's reluctance to allow Kasyanov's candidacy or the three percent pollsters believe it could leach away from Medvedev's vote count is indicative of this over-orchestrated transfer of power. BURNS