| In the elections in Karachay-Cherkessia, he replaced the administrative Two presidential candidates in Karachay-Cherkessia will compete on Sunday in a decisive battle for votes. The first round, held two weeks ago, was won by the head of the local branch of the Central Bank, Mustafa Batdyev (41%). He was ahead of current President Vladimir Semenov by almost 5%. According to a number of experts, defeat in the first round significantly reduced the governor’s chances of winning in the second. It is difficult for him to find supporters other than those who have already given him their preferences in the first round, but the entire “protest electorate”, which failed candidates took for themselves, unites around Mr. Batdyev.
But for now, Mr. Semenov does not want to admit defeat. His supporters hold rallies every day, and entire propaganda trains of passenger cars decorated with flags and posters of the current president move around the republic. True, his opponent’s headquarters believes that this propaganda campaign is being conducted using not entirely legal methods. Yesterday, the leadership of the “Batdyev” headquarters even sent an open letter to the Prosecutor General of Russia Vladmir Ustinov and the Minister of Internal Affairs Boris Gryzlov with a request to take measures against violators, including initiating criminal cases for obstructing the free expression of citizens. In their opinion, the rallies of the “Semyonovites” are in some cases spontaneous, and in campaign columns of 250 cars there are mainly militants who are supposed to intimidate the population of Russian villages and force their residents to vote “for whoever they need.” Vladimir Semenov’s side claims that all these accusations are unfounded, and it is Mustafa Batdyev’s team that wants to bring the people to the streets according to the 1999 scenario.
The fact is that Mr. Semyonov’s opponent in that campaign, the Circassian Stanislav Derev, at one time promised to appoint the Karachay Batdyev as prime minister in the event of his victory. From the point of view of some Karachais, this was almost a betrayal, which the banker has not yet been forgiven for. By the way, even now there are many Circassians in his headquarters: they themselves did not nominate their own candidate for the current elections, but decided to actively cooperate with the banker.
Mr. Batdyev, at least for the duration of the elections, managed to unite around himself all the ethnic movements of Karachay-Cherkessia and channel their energy into a relatively peaceful direction. The current president, apparently, relied solely on his “administrative resources” - he even began his campaign campaign much later than all his rivals, and he was not very active in it. But even control over local administrations did not bring the retired general victory in the first round.
The main factor that may cast doubt on the conduct of the second round itself unexpectedly turned out to be not an administrative resource, but a judicial resource. Third place in the first round was taken by the head of the Supreme Court of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic Islam Burlakov (this is a unique precedent when the head of the region’s judiciary decided to change his mantle to the presidential chair), who, naturally, was very dissatisfied with the outcome of the vote.
Through several proxies, he appealed to the Supreme Court of the republic: the plaintiffs demanded to cancel the results of the first round due to the fact that there was ballot stuffing and bribery of voters. By the way, both winners, although they brought such accusations against each other, considered them insufficient to demand the cancellation of the voting results. Now they unanimously accuse the judge of intending to disrupt the elections with the assistance of his colleagues (Mr. Burlakov himself has temporarily resigned).
In Cherkessk, the interrogation of witnesses has indeed been going on for several days, and theoretically, if the hearings are not completed by Sunday, the vote could be postponed. And if the election campaign in the form in which it is going now lasts longer than until Sunday, then the republic will have a very real chance of becoming a real hot spot.
This circumstance, apparently, is well understood at the Central Election Commission. The head of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, became the first federal chief to announce that there were no grounds for revising the results of the first round of elections. And most likely the second round will still take place on the last day of summer: the territorial election commissions have already received new ballots. The initiator of the scandal himself, Judge Burlakov, left Cherkessk yesterday and flew to Moscow. Ivan SUKHOV |
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