Murmansk is preparing for a mayoral run-off election
The mayoral run-off in Murmansk will take place on March 15. The headquarters of Mayor Mikhail Savchenko and his rival, Regional Vice-Governor Sergei Subbotin, are accusing each other of resorting to bureaucratic clout and mudslinging. Meanwhile, Murmansk Governor Yury Yevdokimov is angry that he has been made party to this "smear campaign" and insists he is not resigning.
On February 11, Mr Yevdokimov, who is also leader of the United Russia local branch, publicly called on his supporters from the city branch "to stop disgracing the party". He described as disgraceful the attempts "to set the governor and party at odds" by spreading "false information" in federal and local media that the governor will back a candidate at the mayoral election other than the one officially nominated by the party. On the same day, Andrei Vorobyov, head of the United Russia Central Executive Committee, said that Mr Yevdokimov could be expelled from the party. A day later, Boris Gryzlov, head of the party's Supreme Council, said it was too soon to speak of sanctions.
The first thing that one notices in Murmansk is the total lack of billboards for either of the candidates. At the same time, the city is plastered with outdoor United Russia advertising: children's drawings and the catch-all slogan "Be good". Trolleybuses and fences are covered in posters showing Mr Savchenko and his motto "The good will win". His competitor, Mr Subbotin, who earned 24% of the vote in the first round, has practically no street banners or posters. The Mayor's headquarters explains the absence of billboards by the fact that Murmansk believes "billboards are bad form", as well as by the small size of its war chest. Mr Subbotin's headquarters is claiming "this is a business controlled by the Savchenko family, and since all candidates must have the same treatment, it is easier for them to do without outdoor advertising than to let us have one."
Both candidates are using the image of Vladimir Putin in their campaign newspapers. Before the first round, the United Russia newspaper carried Mr Savchenko's photo next to Mr Putin's portrait. The campaign materials carried by Mr Subbotin, who positions himself as a "non-party supporter of Putin-Medvedev", also feature Mr Putin. The candidate, who served in foreign intelligence in Germany, tells us that he is often asked if he was familiar with Vladimir Putin, who "also served in Germany". "To this I will answer thus: it is not our rule to name-drop. Many of my comrades joined the Putin team, and I am proud of having worked with them," he said.
Mr Subbotin also emphasizes that he, like the United Russia leader, has a Labrador retriever. United Russia members are protesting that the Vice-Governor's headquarters is trying to make a "second Putin" out of him and calling their rival "a conman", "a son of Lieutenant Schmidt" or "Shura Balaganov". At the same time, headquarters staff stress that the Mayor has no backing from Mr Putin and his portraits were printed next to Mr Savchenko's photographs to create associations.
United Russia feared that its candidate would lose in a runoff; its federal-level party bosses viewed the 31% of the vote gained in the first round as a defeat. Therefore, after March 1 the party leadership sent "spin doctors" to Murmansk to overhaul the election tactic entirely. The Mayor's slogan "We should only work" was changed to "The good will win" and, as United Russia members admitted, they "pulled off a reset" of the campaign. "To defeat populists, it is not enough to give a dry account of the Mayor's achievements, especially since in the first round he failed to come out as an individual," they said. In the upshot, as March 8 drew nearer, they began mentioning that Mr Savchenko had lived with his wife for 34 years. At the same time, campaign staff complained that the rivals had unleashed a "smear campaign against the Mayor by employing black technologies". As an example, they showed Arctic-TV footage purporting to expose deeds of the city administration and giving details of how it stripped city property of its municipal ownership status. All stories featured the tallest building in the Arctic - Murmansk's tourist destination - the Hotel Arktika on the Five Corners Square, standing boarded up.
Andranik Musatyan, Head of Arctic-TV, who on March 1 was elected Deputy to the City Council by defeating Council Chairman Sergei Soroka, and who is helping Mr Subbotin conduct his campaign, explained to Kommersant that journalists never invent anything, and that "officials steal in a big way, and would have landed me in jail long ago". "Their slogan ‘Be good' should have been rewritten as ‘Be smart'," he said.
"It is outrageous that United Russia is pretending to be poor and offended, while actually it is threatening teachers and medical personnel to vote for Mr Savchenko," added Tatiana Veshnyakova, Head of the Vice-Governor's campaign headquarters. However, United Russia itself is saying that people in Murmansk are "liberal-minded" and can only be argued with, "never scared".
The stand taken by Murmansk Governor Yury Yevdokimov is adding intrigue to the election. Alexei Veller, Head of the United Russia city branch and chief of Mr Savchenko's headquarters, after noting that the regional boss "is maneuvering, supporting Mr Subbotin de facto, and Mr Savchenko de jure," emphasized: "Mr Yevdokimov calculated to do away with the party opposition on the sly, but failed to foresee that Moscow would be closely watching the election." In his campaign spots, Mr Savchenko suddenly went over to the Governor's side, feigning indignance that the federal media launched a campaign against the Governor. Mr Yevdokimov replied in public that "he is surprised, evidently someone was lacking the votes" and stressed that his attitude to "hypocrisy" was "sharply negative".
Mr Yevdokimov told Kommersant that "it is a fact that the campaign is dirty and that the Governor has been made aware of it, although he is taking no part in the election, which is also a fact." At the same time, he revealed that in his address to the people of Murmansk he would "never in his life" support any of the candidates, but would simply urge city residents to go to the polls. Commenting on rumours about his likely resignation, Mr Yevdokimov noted that he still had three years to run before the end of his term, but that "at 62 it is time to think of a more restful life".
Mr Savchenko's headquarters staff was confident of his victory yesterday. "We are sure that good will conquer evil," Mr Veller said. Mr Musatyan supposed the outcome would depend on voter turnout. "The Mayor's electorate will be brought to the ballot boxes by baculine arguments," he concluded.