The Great Builder in The Ruins

The Great Builder In The Ruins...

Part 1: The Sorta-A-Little-Free Election.

BREAKING NEWS: KREMLIN SPOKESMAN CONFIRMS THE DEATH OF RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN.
-CNN, February 3, 1997.

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Prime Minister Chernomyrdin sworn in as acting president, names date of special election

New York Times, February 4, 1997.

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C-SPAN Interviewer.
"You said that announcing the special election for April was a fateful move on Chernomyrdin's part. Was there any fateful event that wouldn't have happened if it had been earlier or later?"

Roy Darren, author of The New Battle-The Story of the 1997 Russian Presidential Election:
"
Not any one major event, just that it made the strongest outsider candidate even stronger. The constitution sets a maximum of three months, and Chernomyrdin calling it for two was part to avoid higher Communist turnout if it was in May and part a desire to get the whole thing over with quicker. What it meant was that there was more time for Luzhkov to promote his narrative and less time for his opponent to do so."

Interviewer:
"And you mention many times that Chernomyrdin ran, but didn't have his heart in it, and that's why he finished in single digits. Do you think he could have won if he'd really committed to the presidency?"

Darren:
"The thing you have to understand is that this wasn't an 'Anybody but Zyuganov' campaign, like the last election was. The oligarchs, the power brokers-they were playing wait and see. And they didn't like the stuffy prime minister who'd done so much. So a lot of the tools Yeltsin had, Chernomyrdin didn't. The guy was just-tired. I think he only ran because he felt he had to.

Now Yury Luzhkov on the other hand, started filing to run the moment he heard of Yeltsin's death. The mayor knew that this was his only shot. So I think that gives you the idea of how different the two were."

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ELECTION RESULTS (First Round)

  • Luzhkov(28.0%)
  • Lebed(20.2%)
  • Zyuganov(20.0%)
  • Chernomyrdin(9.3%)
  • Zhirinovsky(8.1%)
  • Yavlinsky(7.8%)
Others(6.6%)

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Election day passed largely uneventfully-by which it meant that there was little violence. The first exit polls showed Luzhkov in the lead, Alexander Lebed and communist Gennady Zyuganov neck-and-neck, and Chernomyrdin a distant fourth. (The Acting President could spare a sigh of relief that he'd still finished ahead of notorious extremist Vladimir Zhirinovsky).
-
Roy Darren, The New Battle

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Interviewer:
"So, how rigged was the special election?"

Darren:
"Rather than super-rigging, it was basically local rigging. Governors in league with Luzhkov padded his vote totals-to say nothing of his gigantic victory in Moscow itself, Berezovsky pulled some strings on behalf of Lebed. But Luzhkov did run the better campaign."

Interview:
"How so?"

Darren:
"While all the other candidates were pettily attacking each other and Chernomyrdin clunked out one stiff ad after another, Luzhkov was actually positive-this homely, down-to-earth populist showing both the accomplishments of his city and the help he'd given the provinces-essential, since Russia is more than Moscow. So if it had been completely free, I think Luzhkov would still have won."

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The most controversial result was the Communists being denied the second round. Activists believed it to be due to nothing more than blatant rigging. While there was some truth to that, the answer was more complex.

Perhaps more important than actual fraud was the wide (and probably accurate) belief that the Kremlin would not let the Communists win, which led to vote-switching. Chernomyrdin's background as a "Red Belt" industrialist also took a small number of votes away from Zyuganov-perhaps enough to be decisive. The word "perhaps" is used frequently, because he truth will never be known.

One truth was obvious-Luzhkov could not have hoped for a better opponent in the second round than Alexander Lebed.
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Interviewer:
"So, Lebed was an ideal opponent."

Darren:
"About as ideal as you could get. No real ties to either Yeltsin or the Communist remnants, a blunt campaigner with an inconsistent message, and depended on only one patron-Boris Berezovsky, the czar of all the oligarchs.

What this meant was that Luzhkov-and his own media magnate, old ally Vladimir Gusinsky-, could attack him as a puppet, no matter how much he protested that he was independent."

Interviewer:
"Does this mean the lopsided total was fair?"

Darren:
"Well, Luzhkov's allies might have overdone it a little, but any fraud was just making something already lopsided worse. All the polls gave Luzhkov a giant lead."

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ELECTION RESULTS (Second round):

  • Luzhkov(65.0%)
  • Lebed(33.0%)
  • None(2.0%)
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CLINTON CONGRATULATES LUZHKOV ON VICTORY:
"President Bill Clinton phoned Russian President-Elect Yuri Luzhkov to congratulate him on his electoral victory..."


New York Times, April 24, 1996.

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"On May 31, 1996, President Luzhkov was sworn in. Witnessing Russia's first electoral free-for-all, many cynics believed that it would also be the last."
-
Roy Darren, The New Battle.
 
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