RUSSIA'S SAMARA OBLAST - WHAT ELECTION?

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000567 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/28/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR RS SOCI SUBJECT: RUSSIA'S SAMARA OBLAST - WHAT ELECTION? REF: A. MOSCOW 00479 ¶B. MOSCOW 00411 ¶C. MOSCOW 00497 ¶D. MOSCOW 00483 Classified By: POLITICAL M/C Alice G. Wells. Reason: 1.4 (d). ¶1. (SBU) Summary: For most in Samara oblast, the coming Presidential election is a "non-event," with nearly all interlocutors seeing the campaign as already decided. Excepting the ubiquitous posters and banners calling for people to head to the polls this Saturday, there was little evidence in the city of Samara that a presidential race is underway. In neighboring Tolyatti, the home of the Avtovaz factory, there were likewise few signs of POLITICAL competition for president -- a marked difference from the billboards and flyers posted for the mayor election (septel). Expectations for Sunday reflect Samara's track record of comparatively low election turnout vice the national average, with polling predicting between 50-65% turnout, of which approximately 70% will go for Medvedev and the remaining 30% to be split by the Communists and Vladimir Zhirinovskiy's Liberal Democratic Party. End Summary. The Parties -------------- ¶2. (SBU) United Russia's headquarters for its Samara city branch occupies an entire two-story building, with offices for the party leadership, youth organization, and city Duma members to meet their constituents. Aleksandr Fetisov, a former marine officer and now head of the regional executive committee, was confidently optimistic about the turnout and share of votes for Medvedev. He painted a picture of a well-oiled POLITICAL machine, led "informally" by regional Governor Vladimir Artyakov (the official head of Medvedev's campaign in Samara is Duma Deputy Viktor Kazakov, who also led the party's campaign for the Duma in December). Fetisov noted that the party's Moscow leadership had provided support, sending prominent POLITICAL scientist and Duma Deputy Sergey Markov to lead a round of campaign seminars, and organizing meetings of party organizations in the Volga Okrug, where local teams were able to compare strategies. ¶3. (SBU) The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) headquarters was squalid by comparison, manned by senior citizens, adorned with pictures of Lenin and Stalin (notably, not candidate Zyuganov),and packed with copies of KPRF newspapers. Party First Secretary and State Duma Deputy Valentin Romanov came across as a capable politician facing what he admitted to be tall odds in promoting his candidate in an election that he deemed "unfair." He lamented the three or more hours of television coverage that was lavished on Medvedev and despaired of the KPRF's inability to gain access to local newspapers or television stations. He noted that conditions for the KPRF had been "easier" than during the Duma elections last fall, but the party had faced increased pressure in the last weeks, including falsified advertisements for a KPRF POLITICAL rally on Saturday (which would be a violation of election laws). Not only did the KPRF headquarters lack the bustle and enthusiasm of the United Russia office, a rally on the city's central square pm February 28 boasted only a hundred of so pensioners who gave pitifully weak "hurrahs" to the speeches of the party leadership. The rally's only representative of the city's youth ended his oration with a warning that the election of Medvedev would mean that Russia would be ruled for the first time by a "Jew" -- which earned him the half-hearted cheers of the assembled. ¶4. (SBU) The situation of Samara's Democratic Party of Russia (DPR) reflected their candidate's pathetic showing in regional polls. Their office was even more modest than that of the KPRF, with no evidence of campaign materials or even staff. The head of the party, Evgeniy Lartsev, and his deputy Lev Mikhaylovich spent much of their time stressing the historical roots of the party, which they traced back to the heyday of the late Gorbachev era when the Democratic Party faced down the old Soviet leadership. Lartsev had no complaints about the way that the campaign was being run and was comfortable with a program based on the national-level television commercials and debates. With the pride of a grandfather about his brightest grandson, Mikhaylovich praised DPR candidate Bogdanov as a young, fresh face who he believed would be attractive to the younger generation. Lartsev and Mikhaylovich portrayed the 2008 election as merely the first step in the creation of a new liberal party, with hopes that the "right" forces could be consolidated under Bogdanov and voiced some hope that the expected 5-10% "protest vote" would swing for their candidate. The Campaign -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Olga Solomatina, the head of Samara's Electoral Commission, portrayed the election process as following legal norms and proceeding without problems. She noted that there had been only two violations of election laws, which she described as "technical mistakes" that were quickly resolved. She noted that all of the parties taking part in the elections had seats on the election commissions and said that relations between the competitors were "professional" and conflict-free. ¶6. (C) The election commission has undertaken a massive advertising campaign to "get out the vote," with billboards and flyers posted around the city, proclaiming "our country, our president." When asked, Solomatina noted that funding for the advertising campaign came from Moscow and not from local funds. Sergey Kurt-Adzhiev, the former editor of Novaya Gazeta (which was closed by the authorities last fall),painted a different picture and claimed that the election commission had compelled local administrations to pay for advertisements from budget funds. Moreover, he noted that the members of the election commission stood to benefit from a "tidy" campaign, since funding had already been allocated for a second round and would not have to be returned or passed to the local administration. ¶7. (C) Kurt-Adzhiev and local sociologist Vladimir Zvonkovskiy both expected the use of administrative resources by local officials in support of United Russia. Zvonkovskiy argued that such measures -- pressing parents of schoolchildren to vote, managing employees and encouraging them to go to the polls, etc, -- provided a 5% difference during the Duma elections and predicted a similar result on Sunday. Perhaps as evidence of the collusion between the administration and United Russia, Medvedev's team was preparing to hand out scarves to first-time voters that had been provided by the Election Commission. Comment -------------- ¶8. (SBU) The election picture in Samara differs little from that in other regions (reftels). The usual boost in turnout for a presidential election has largely been negated by the population's lack of enthusiasm for yet another referendum on the country's administration. People remain focused on more immediate concerns, such as poor roads and dilapidated infrastructure, rather than on POLITICAL issues. Even Samara's POLITICAL players appeared wearied by the campaign and ready to move on to other issues. BURNS