No. 015 Primorye Election Update: May 10, 2001 Duma Deputy Alleges Belchuk Coerced into Resigning

 

                                                            

 

 

 

                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        No. 15

                                                    

                                                U.S. Consulate General, Vladivostok

                                                                      May 10, 2001

 

 

Primorye Election Update: May 10, 2001

 

1.      Duma Deputy Alleges Belchuk Coerced into Resigning

Solovyev: Belchuk was Threatened

 

During a Victory Day interview program on Radio Lemma, opposition Primorye Duma Deputy Sergey Solovyev related some of the circumstances surrounding Igor Belchuk’s resignation in favor of Konstantin Tolstoshein.  According to Solovyev, Belchuk reported that in the days before his resignation he had received numerous threats against his family and himself personally, and in the end, he felt compelled to resign.  Belchuk would not say who made the threats, but the modus operandi suggests Tolstoshein or his supporters as the primary suspects.  According to the 1997 Kondratov report, Tolstoshein maintained close ties throughout the 1990s with several organized crime families in Primorye and relied upon two such families to provide guard services for his many enterprises (all registered in the names of close relatives).

 

2.  Election Irregularities and Dueling Polls Proliferate as Candidates Trade Accusations

Perhaps quite predictably, in one of his first measures as Acting Governor Konstantin Tolstoshein sent a complaint to the Primorye Election Commission about “violations” of the electoral law committed by Valentin Dubinin. These included starving the Election Commission of money during his tenure as Acting Governor, engaging in election campaigning before being registered as a candidate, and using the Vladivostok White House as his personal election headquarters.  Tolstoshein has also been peppering the airwaves with his protestations of support for Pulikovskiy deputy Gennadiy Apanasenko as the next Governor of Primorye.  For his part, Dubinin has appeared on local TV and in an interview in “Utro Rossii” accusing Apanasenko and Pulikovskiy in all but name of orchestrating Tolstoshein’s return, while noting pointedly that President Putin had nothing to do with these most recent political maneuvers.  Dubinin also said that Mayor Kopylov, a Nazdratenko man, had also sided with Apanasenko after an audit of city finances was called off.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Aleksandr Kirilichev filed complaints against all the major candidates, asking them to be taken off the ballot due to various violations of the election law.  However, none of the complaints were upheld by the Election Commission.  In the battle of the pollsters, one polling organization reported that the race was now down to three persons: ex-Mayor Cherepkov with 24 percent, Gennadiy Apanasenko with 19 percent, and Aleksandr Kirilichev with 15 percent.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the poll was commissioned by Apanasenko’s campaign organization, so its results are, shall we say, suspect.  Similarly, another poll shows that Dubinin is leading with 19 percent followed by Kirilichev, Cherepkov, and Grishukov. Fifth place goes to Sergey Darkin at six percent; however, according to this poll support for Darkin is growing faster than that for any other candidate.  One guess as to whose organization commissioned this poll.

The one constant in all the inter-candidate bickering is that the one candidate who has done scarcely any campaigning at all – Viktor Cherepkov – is either leading or in the top two contenders.  Dark Horse Darkin is also coming up on the outside – enough so that a few dirty tricks are being played on him. For example, at a meeting of voters yesterday in the town of Yaroslavsk, at which Darkin was due to speak to War Veterans, the microphone was cut off and local officials began shooing war veterans and factory workers out of the auditorium despite Darkin’s protests.

3.  The Official Gazette Puts in an Appearance

Apanasenko’s supporters are also making their own contribution to violations of the election law.  Just after Apanasenko was registered, an ”independent” newspaper called “Official Gazette” made its appearance on the streets of Vladivostok.  Its circulation is a phenomenal 650,000 and it is being circulated for free.  Strangely, for an “independent” newspaper, its stories all seem to have the same slant – they are almost all about Apanasenko and what a great guy he is.  Like much of the sub-rosa campaigning done by local political organizations, there is no indication, other than the editorial content, that the paper is actually a campaign broadsheet for the Center’s choice.