The article below was originally published on the Carnegie Endowment for Democracy Moscow Center’s website in November 2003. All of my articles written for Carnegie have been removed from their website and the Internet, so I republish them here. Original: Gordon M. Hahn, “Previews of the 2003 St. Petersburg Single Mandate District Races for the Russian State Duma,” 2003 Duma Elections – St. Petersburg, (Moscow: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Moscow Center, 4 December 2003), http://www.carnegie.ru/en/pubs/media/69176.html.
PREVIEW OF ST. PETERSBURG’S 2003 SINGLE-MANDATE DISTRICT ELECTION CAMPAIGNS FOR THE RUSSIAN STATE DUMA
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., Fulbright Visiting Professor, St. Petersburg State University hahn@hoover.stanford.edu
Introduction
St. Petersburg’s single-mandate district elections to the State Duma will be a little different from many others in 2003. First, in the past St. Petersburg stood out from other ‘subjects of the federation’ in post-communist Russia, it was because in relative terms it was a bastion of something approaching real, ‘unmanaged’ democracy. This can no longer be considered true. With the Kremlin’s overt use of administrative resources to drive Vladimir Yakovlev from power and install its hand-picked virtual appointee Valentina Matvienko as governor, the President Vladimir Putin’s administration Moscow went along way towards establishing the predominance of a stealth-like form of soft authoritarian rule not only in the northern capitol but in Russia as a whole. (Oddly enough, Matvienko would have won without Moscow’s heavy-hand and overdone largesse.) Since governors usually control much of what goes on in their region’s single-mandate electoral districts and since Petersburg’s governor is a creature entirely of Moscow’s making, the Kremlin can lay claim to considerable, almost direct influence in Petersburg’s single-mandate district elections to the State Duma. Perhaps in no other region of Russia is the chief executive officer so loyal to the Kremlin, with the possible exception of Ingushetia’s President Murat Zyazikov and Chechnya’s president Akhmad Kadyrov, both elected to office by way of direct Kremlin intervention in the election process and facing little in the way of viable opponents.
However, it appears the Kremlin has not been able to clear the field entirely for the Duma district races in Petersburg as it was able to do for the gubernatorial elections. The vibrancy of Petersburg’s democracy still exhibits some residual life. Just how much life will be shown in the election outcomes. However, several conclusions can be drawn from the pre-election process. Quantitatively, St. Petersburg also differs from other regions’ single-mandate races in that there were more candidates willing and able to put forward their candidacies for a seat in the Duma from St. Petersburg than in other regions. The average number of 10.5 candidates running in each of Petersburg’s eight single-mandate districts exceeds the average of 9 candidates per district nationwide reported by Central Election Commission Chairman Aleksandr Veshnyakov (Maria Ol’kina, “Utrennyi obkhod,” Kommersant – Saint Petersburg edition, 17 November 2003, p. 16).
Qualitatively, of the leading candidates, two or three candidates in each Petersburg district are nominees and/or leading members of political parties. This contrasts sharply with the federation-wide picture in which, according to Secretary of the Central Election Commission, 42% of the 1,652 candidates for single-mandate district seats were nominated by parties, and 58% were self-nominated. Thus, Petersburg, is defying the still limited role played by parties in the first-past-the-post portion of the Duma elections and in regional elections. Moreover, there are strong democrats running in each district as opponents to the Kremlin and candidates from Edinaya Rossiya and other pro-Kremlin centrist parties. As earlier, Yabloko is the leading force among the democrats in Petersburg. It has its own top candidates or candidates closely associated with the party or its present faction in the Duma in all but two (the 207th and the 209th) of Petersburg’s eight single-mandate district races. In each of the six races it has a candidate he or she is one of two top contenders. In all but one (the 213th) of these six, a strong argument can be made that the Yabloko-associated candidate is the favorite to win. In the district that its candidate is not the favorite, the favorite is a former Yabloko member, Oksana Dmitrieva, who left the party to form her own democratic party, the Party for the Development of Entrepreneurialship. In the two races where Yabloko does not have a candidate the democratic party, the Union of Rightist Forces (SPS), has nominated two strong candidates, Grigorii Yomchin (207th) and Duma deputy chairwoman Irina Khakamada (209th).
The candidates of Yabloko and, to a lesser extent, those of the SPS square off in all but one race against a leading candidate squarely backed by the Kremlin and/or its main supporting political party Edinaya Rossiya. In only a few races does the left have prospects of playing an important role, and in only one race is a candidate put forward by the KPRF a real player: Svyatoslav M. Sokol in the 212th. In sum, Petersburg stands to be a major determinant of whether the Duma elections will be another stepping-stone on the Kremlin’s way to establishing stealth authoritarianism n Russia.
206th (Admiralty) District
The 206th District’s large has a field of 17 candidates, the most for any of Petersburg’s Duma seats. This is perhaps the most prestigious of Petersburg’s single-mandate district seats. The large field will contribute to extensive vote-splitting across the political spectrum. The 206th also will be one of the more important indicators among the Petersburg races of the democrats’ capacity to overcome the Kremlin’s mounting assault on democratic elections. The campaign will likely revolve around the contest between incumbent and leading democrat Yulii A. Rybakov, two pro-Kremlin candidates Vladimir I. Yudin and Vitalii A. Kalinin, and the ‘Rodina’ party’s candidate Yurii P. Savelev. The intensity of the regime-opposition conflict here became even clearer when on 31 October Rybakov was initially refused registration by the district election commission. Pro-Kremlin parties had motives for moving against Rybakov because Rybakov is a dissident and oppositionist. The agent of this particular application of administrative resources was not surprisingly an opponent of Rybakov’s in the race and a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly’s Edinaya Rossiya faction Sergei Yu. Andreev, who appealed to the election commission to have Rybakov’s registration as a candidate revoked. At any rate, the Central Election Commission overturned the decision of the district commission and re-instated Rybakov’s candidacy. This episode suggests perhaps the overzealousness of regional as opposed to federal bodies in establishing stealth authoritarianism, which relies on more subtle manipulations of the electoral playing field and uses of administrative resources in doing the Kremlin’s bidding.
Yabloko Duma Deputy withdrew the candidacy of Duma deputy Aleksandr Shishlov for this seat in favor of Rybakov, underscoring Yabloko’s support for the former dissident. The SPS put forward 42-yearold businessman Aleksei Titov as its candidate. By opposing Yabloko’s candidate, the SPS has limited, if not put an end to the democratic coalition that formed the core of the anti-Yakovlev coalition in the December 2002 Petersburg Legislative and September-October 2003 gubernatorial elections. The fact is, however, that Rybakov is a candidate more compatible with Yabloko’s profile as one representing the views of the liberal intelligentsia and so-called ‘pravozashchitniki’. Rybakov was born into a family of imprisoned political dissidents in the Siberian Gulag, and he himself spent six years in prison for dissident political activity in the 1970s. In 1990 he was elected a deputy in the Leningrad City Soviet and created the first human rights committee in the USSR. In addition to Yabloko, Rybakov is supported by the International Collegium of Lawyers ’Saint Petersburg’, the Petersburg branch of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, the human and political rights organizations ‘Soldiers’ Mothers’, ‘Memorial’, and ‘Citizens’ Control’, and the St. Petersburg Union of Veterans of Afghanistan and Reserve Soldiers.
The regime’s interests and intrigues surrounding the arrest of Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovskii are also represented in this district race. The initiator of the complaint to the General Prosecutor regarding the Yukos-affiliated firm ‘Apatit’, which led to Khodorkovskii’s arrest, State Duma deputy Vladimir Yudin decided to run in this district. He became a deputy replacing Valerii Malyshev, who resigned his seat won on the Otechestvo-All-Russia list in the 1999 Duma elections. Yudin formerly headed the Kirov Factory, a key player in the Petersburg economy. He heads the Duma Committee on Economic Policy and Entrepreneurialship. Yudin has not received any open support from any of the leading parties or Kremlin factions. However, he may be receiving some form of support from the Kremlin’s faction of ‘chekisty’ or others. Yudin certainly did some Kremlin bidding when he served on the State Duma’s special commission for monitoring the preparations and conduct of St. Petersburg’s December 2002 Legislative Assembly elections. Yudin’s campaign is hammering home the issue of rent for the use of natural resources, championed by Sergei Glazev, leader of the ‘Rodina’ party. He is calling for the adoption of the law he authored ‘On the Right of Citizens of Russia to Revenues from Natural Resources of the Russian Federation,’ which, according to Yudin will add R500 million to the federal budget annually. These moneys, according to Yudin’s campaign brochure, should direct the “money form the oligarchs’ super-profits” to opening personal accounts in SberBank for each citizen, housing reform in Petersburg, the development of science, support of medicine, and the development of education.
However, the Narodnaya Partiya (People’s Party), backed by the chekisty, put forward Vitalii Kalinin as its candidate for the 206th district seat. A leading Petersburg lawyer, Kalinin was formerly a member of the Yabloko faction in the Petersburg Legislative Assembly (second convocation, 1999-2002). His defection from the faction and party (where he was regarded as faction’s second leading member after faction chair Mikhail Amosov) to the newly founded People’s party in 2001 was one of several that led to Yabloko losing its faction. Kalinin was rewarded with the first slot on the People’s Party’s Peterburg regional list, despite his failure to be re-elected to the Petersburg Legislative Assembly in December 2002. Kalinin is a political opportunist, whose direction is hard to predict. Kalinin entered the deputies’ factions of the recent two anti-Yakovlev assembly speakers (‘Legality’- Sergei Mironov, and ‘Edinstvo-Narodnaya Partiya – present speaker Tyul’panov), but did not enter pro-Yakovlev speaker Sergei Tarasov’s faction. Yet, he reportedly supported Yakovlev’s for a third term as governor in opposition to the Kremlin. Kalinin’s machinations can be explained by the view supported by some analysts that the People’s Party is a creature of the chekisty faction in the Kremlin created to oppose former presidential administration chief Aleksandr Voloshin’s project of building a non-ideological party, Edinaya Rossiya.
The most important implications of the race for this seat are the contest between the candidate-democrat Rybakov, completely lacking in business and administrative support, on the one hand, and candidates like Yudin and Kalinin with local business and Kremlin administrative resources behind them. Given the trends in Petersburg established by Matvienko’s easy victory in the gubernatorial election on the back of enormous administrative resources, Rybakov’s chances of victory are limited, especially if predictions of another low voter turnout bear out. His only chance may be split voting for the pro-Kremlin candidates, Yudin and Kalinin.
Here, the candidacy of Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy and Science, Education and Culture Commission Chairman Sergei Andreev may play a role. A member of the Edinaya Rossiya faction, he may further split the pro-Kremlin vote. However, it was Andreev who did the Kremlin’s bidding in attempting to have Rybakov’s registration as a candidate in the district revoked, filing the appeal with the district electoral commission. After the district’s revocation of Rybakov’s registration was overturned by the federal Central Election Commission, Andreev has filed a second appeal for Rybakov’s de-registration. Andreev is a native Petersburger, a Doctor of Economics, and the author of 12 books. From 1985-89 he worked in the oil and gas sector. He began his political activity during perestroika, writing articles in the journals Ural and Neva on the bureaucracy as a class bent on defending its interests alone. In 1990 he became one of the leaders of the Leningrad People’s Front and, according to his campaign literature, ran for a seat in the USSR Supreme Soviet (those elections were held in 1989). In 1991 he headed the Union of Workers’ Collectives of Leningrad, formed to defend the interests of workers during privatization. In 2002, he published a book Nabat on Russia’s subjugation to the interests of transnational corporations. He is also a prolific writer fiction writer.
Andreev’s political base and activities are dominated by the more than 400 domovye komitety or domkomy (house committees) in Petersburg, creation of which was initiated by him to organize residents of buildings in defense of the housing, communal services, and other domestic interests. He claims credit in his legislative assembly Kirov district to the repair of hundreds of residential buildings, payments for equipment and repairs of schools and kindergartens, installation of window grates, metal doors, and targeted aid to the poor and social organizations. He is now working on building upon the foundation of the domkomy ‘associations of housing owners’ of territories (tovarishchestva sobstvennikov zhil’ya territorii) encompassing several blocks, which would have the authority and right to monitoring and choice of service organizations and attract funds for capital repairs. A key rhetorical device of his campaign is a call for the country “to cease living ‘according to Chubais,’ when we pay more and more for electricity and heat, although we get less and less.” It is against such rhetoric that Chubais chose Petersburg as one of five regions where electricity rates were reduced by 20%, and a letter ostensibly from Chubais to residents was sent to city residents, arriving in mid-November, just in time to have a hoped for maximum effect on voters’ opinion of Chubais and thus by extension the SPS.
Voting for the ‘party of power’ may be further split by Edinaya Rossiya’s support for the little known candidate Andrei Benin, who is being actively backed by local councils of veterans.
The vote on the left will be severely split among four candidates: Rodina’s Yurii Savelev, the Social Democratic Party’s Secretary Ilya Konstantinov, Rus’s Valentin Korovin (president of the Petersburg branch of the Public-State Foundation for the Defense of Rights of Depositors and Stock-Holders), and the joint candidate of the Russian Communist Workers’ Party and the Russian Party of Communists Dmitrii Kuzmin. Savelev, a Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy elected in December 2000 and rector of Petersburg’s Baltic State Technical University, is the undoubted leader on the left in the district. Having broken from the city’s weak KPRF organization, he is a moderate communist elected to the Petersburg assembly as a candidate of the regional electoral bloc ‘Science, Industry, and Education’ which supports state support for the defense industry and other ‘real’ sectors of the economy. The electoral bloc joined Sergei Glazev’s and Dmitrii Rogozin’s Rodina party, backed by the Kremlin to siphon votes away from the KPRF. The pro-Smolny daily Nevskoe vremya has been supporting the federal Center’s support for Rodina, making it possible that Rodina’s fortunes in Petersburg may grow, and with them, those of Savelev, who already has high name recognition and considerable support in the city. It should be added that in 2000 Savelev ‘won’ in the 209th district by-election with 36% of the vote defeating then Yedinstvo leader Yurii Solonin who was backed as well by Volya Peterburga, SPS, and Yabloko, though there was very low turn out that not only annulled the election but have distorted the result giving Savelev this impressive victory. Low turnout and another annulled vote frustrated Savelev in a repeat 2001 by-election in which he bettered his 2000 performance, taking 44.78% of the vote. In short, Savelev has a real chance to win this seat.
However, as the left’s premier candidate in the district, he is more likely to come under attack from the Kremlin or allies doing its bidding. This would likely mitigate any positive spinoff that might accrue to Savelev from official promotion of Rodina. On 28 October Izvestiya (Viktor Sergeev, “Somnitel’nyi resurs”), controlled by pro-Kremlin oligarch Vladimir Potanin, published in its St. Petersburg edition an article accusing Savelev of overlooking criminal charges brought against his former of deputy at the state Military Mechanical University (VoenMekh) in St. Petersburg where Savelev was pro-rector (before being elected to the SPLA in December 2002) in order to maintain access to administrative resources available through VoenMekh. Also, as a moderate Petersburg leftist, Savelev is likely to see part of his electorate taken by centrist like Yudin and Kalinin and leftists with a very distant chance in the race like Mikhail D. Zlydnikov and Yurii K. Sevenard.
Mikhail Zlydnikov was nominated by the “speakers’ bloc” – the two-party electoral bloc of Party of Rebirth of Russia headed by State Duma Chairman Genaddii Seleznev, a candidate in the 209th district, and the Party of Life, headed Russian Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov. The later party is the federal offspring of the Petersburg party ‘Petersburg’s Will’ (Volya Petersburga) founded by Mironov when he was acting chairman of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, so Zlydnikov could see some official support. Yurii Sevenard, a former Duma deputy from the KPRF presently working as assistant of present Duma deputy G. A. Selunev, may take votes on the left, though there is no evidence he will have access to sufficient party or other resources through Selunev to accomplish much else.
The remnants of the Yakovlev administration produced the candidacy of V.G. Mettus, who is likely running to win himself deputy’s immunity. He is still under investigation for exceeding his official authorities during his tenure as Petersburg’s Sport Committee Chairman. Despite having held this post and the office of Admiralty District Administration Head earlier, he has little access to city administrative resources and none to Moscow-based ones.
207th (Eastern) District
Petersburg’s 207th district race was thrown wide open when incumbent Irina Khakamada, co-chair of the SPS party and State Duma Deputy Chair, decided to run in the 209th district instead. The campaign’s front-runners are Grigorii A. Tomchin and Irina K. Rodnina. Tomchin heads the SPS party’s Petersburg branch. Many regard Tomchin as the Peterburg SPS’s nominal leader, one who is in competition with its ‘real’ leader LenEnergo Director Dmitrii Likhachev. Tomchin also is a former St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly (SPLA) deputy. There were reports early last year that Tomchin was considering a run for the governor’s seat to replace Yakovlev. However, he did not run and instead led the SPS in joining with Yabloko and eventually the pro-Kremlin centrist parties in forming a four-party anti-Yakovlev coalition in the Petersburg 2002 parliamentary and 2003 gubernatorial elections, backing in the latter race the Kremlin’s candidate and now incumbent governor Valentina Matvienko. The absence of a Yabloko candidate in the district is bound to help Tomchin.
Irina Rodnina equals if not surpasses Tomchin with regard to name recognition in the city as the famous three-time Olympic and ten-time world figure-skating champion. Furthermore, she was nominated and is backed by the party of power Edinaya Rossiya, from which she can expect strong backing as a reward for her strong support for Matvienko’s gubernatorial campaign. Other federal administrative resources may accrue from her being chair of the central council of the athletic association ‘Sportivnaya Russia’ from where she is lobbying Moscow mayor YuriiLuzhkov to build an ice palace in the capitol. For her support of Matvienko and because she is also a woman, Rodnina is also likely to enjoy considerable city-based administrative resources from Smolny. In a television on the Regional Television channel on 20 November she cut arather modest but pleasant figure, while supporting the official line by defending the arrest of Yukos chairman Mikhail Khodorkovskii as justified given his alleged tax evasion machinations.
While Rodnina clearly has an edge in popularity and administrative resources, Tomchin is the more experienced politician, having once served as a SPLA deputy. While Rodnina has been a resident of Moscow, Tomchin has been a persistent political force in the city. He has repeatedly put forward in a high-profile manner a detailed plan for the city’s development in the 21st century which includes a grandiose project the Petersburg sea port and dam, uniting the city and Kronstadt Island closer together.
Second-tier candidates are Aleksandr K. Yergorov and two St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputies Vladimir Belozerskikh, and Aleksandr V. Morozov. Yegorov is the front-runner among the second-tier group. He is a former Duma deputy and is backed by the Narodnaya Party, purportedly backed by the chekist camp of Petersburgers in the Kremlin. He is well-known in the city from his days in the Leningrad Sovet where he headed Planning and Budget-Finance Commission.
The next potential force in the race is Aleksandr Morozov, who has good ties to both the city and the district. Although his campaign literature describes him as an independent candidate, he is co-chair of the Petersburg branch of the Pensioners’ Party and enjoys the official backing of city’s ‘Volya Peterburga’ party. He finished in second-place to Irina Khakamada in the 207th in the 1999 Duma race and is Petersburg Legislative Assembly deputy of the last two convocations from the 21st district which is located in the 207th Duma seat district. He was born in Leningrad and after high school entered the serving at a rocket complex of the Air Defense Forces in Volgograd. In 1985 he returned to Leningrad and received training as refrigerator specialist. In 1991 he tried his hand at private enterprise, organizing an enterprise for industrial construction and inter-regional truck transport ‘Obukhovo-Avto-Plyus’. In 1997 he created the charitable foundation ‘Nevskii’ active in the district and participated in renovation of the chapel of the Suvorov Military School in the district. He supports two Petersburg youth hockey teams. In 1999 he successfully defended a candidate’s dissertation in economics and is now working on a second high academic degree at St. Petersburg State University’s Law Faculty. In 2000 he was elected a SPLA deputy. He was easily re-elected in December 2002 and is a member of the assembly’s seven-member ‘Mariinskii’ faction. He supports: a “just tax” on the use of Russian natural resources; social support for children, pensioners, teachers, and doctors; federal payments to Petersburg for its fulfillment of federal functions; a redistribution of tax revenues in favor of the city as opposed to the federal center; continued federal funding of road work in Petersburg; development of city market for small- and medium-sized business; a ban on persons with dual citizenship holding state office; more harsh punishment of bureaucrats found guilty of corruption; life imprisonment for narcotic-dealing; and repeal of the moratorium on the death penalty in cases involving acts of terrorism. Morozov has been outspoken in alleging the application of administrative resources in favor Rodnina.
Although the Petersburg predecessor and nucleus of Federation Council Chairman and former SPLA acting chairman Sergei Mironov’s Party of Life (Partiya Zhizni), Volya Peterburga, supports Morozov, the electoral bloc partner of the Party of Life, Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev’s Party of the Rebirth of Russia is backing a different candidate, October Railroad official Valentin N. Nikol’skii
Bringing up the rear of the second-tier is Vladimir Belozerskikh is backed by the party ‘Rus’ and is also a SPLA deputy and a member of the SPLA’s ‘Sportivnaya Rossiya’ (Sport Russia) faction, headed by Denis Volchek who is considered to have organized crime ties. Belozerskikh ran for governor in neighboring Leningrad Oblast’ in September. He is handicapped by his reputation as a Yakovlevite during the tenure of former governor, now Russian Minister for housing policy Vladimir Yakovlev. He was an adviser to both Yakovlev and former Leningrad Oblast’ Vadim Gutstov.
The third-tier of candidates consists of weak candidates enjoying the backing of leading federal-level parties with a weak presence in Petersburg: the KPRF and LDPR. The KPRF decided to put forward a candidate for the 207th district seat (as opposed to the 206th): Yurii A. Gatchin. The party’s weakness in the city makes Gatchin a distant outsider in the race. The same goes for the LDPR’s young (28-year old) candidate, Aleksandr A. Kol’tsov. His youth suggests a trend, as the LDPR’s candidate in the 206th district is but 31years of age.
208th (Western) District
The main contest in the 208th district will revolve around a democrat and pro-Kremlin centrist here as well, Yabloko’s Igor Yu. Artemev and incumbent deputy from the district Valentina N. Ivanova, respectively. Artemev is an incumbent Duma deputy, but not from the district seat. He was elected on the party’s 1999 party list, but this time around Yabloko has decided to deploy one of its ‘heavyweights’ to challenge an important pro-Kremlin incumbent. Artemev is a deputy chairman of Yabloko’s countrywide organization and of the Duma’s Committee on Credit Organizations and Financial Markets. He is in competition with Yabloko’s St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly faction leader Mikhail Amosov for the leadership of the Yabloko’s organization in the city. Thus, he may find somewhat less than fully energized support coming from Yabloko’s city organization, though in April an Artemevite, Maksim Reznik, replaced Amosov as chairman of Yabloko’s city organization. Despite this, he is the favorite to win the district seat by virtue of his long-time record in the city’s legislature as head of the Ecology Commission and as the city’s vice governor in charge of budget and finances.
Other main contenders will have to rely on administrative resources from Smolny and the Kremlin if they hope to have a chance to defeat Artemev. Potential challengers are two women. Edinaya Rossiya’s candidate, Duma deputy, and Duma Local Administration Committee Deputy Chairwoman, Valentina N. Ivanova, is likely to enjoy the most administrative resources, despite rumors that Ivanova was too close to former governor Yakovlev to enjoy full support from Smolny and the presidential administration. She has already been given free air time in the form of ‘news coverage’ on the VGTRK ‘Rossiya’ state channel’s prime-time evening news program ‘Vesti v Peterburge’ on 20 November under the pretext of a story on the project granting ‘Nuakagrad’ status (which Ivanova heads) and transform Peterhof into a center of scientific innovation center. On or around 22 November a brief television ad for Ivanova began to appear; one of the first to appear for any single-mandate district candidate in Petersburg. Thus, Ivanova’s failure to hold this seat, particularly if it comes in a defeat to the democrat Artemev, will be a serious indicator of at least some limit on the Kremlin’s ability to stage-manage politics within the parameters of the present careful, stealth-like approach to building a soft authoritarian regime.
There are other potential players, who at least can shape the outcome by draining the potential electorate of the top candidates. Lyubov Yegorova, nominated by the ‘Rus’ party, can count on some name recognition and outright popularity as a former Olympic and world champion. Also having the potential to drain Ivanova’s electorate are Party of Rebirth of Russia and Party of Life bloc candidate Dmitrii Yu. Likhachev (director of the factory ‘Radius’) and self-nominated candidate and chief of the Institute for the Preparation and the Promotion of Qualifications of Officials of the FSB Vladimir A. Fefelin. The Development of Entrepreneurialship Party’s candidate, Igor N. Onishchenko could take votes away from Artemev.
The KPRF and LDPR again have little to offer in this district. The KPRF nominated Vladimir I. Fyodorov, the KPRF Petersburg GorKom’s Second Secretary. Since he is an aide to a Duma deputy and thus may have some additional resources beyond the party’s and since the left has no other candidates in this district, Fyodorov could finish as high as fourth or third. If the KPRF was not so weak in Petersburg, he might even be considered a dark horse. The LDPR nominated again a young, 41-year old Igor V. Savelev, chief editor of the Delta publishing company.
209th (Northern) District
This district’s race has the fewest number of candidates — 8 — in Petersburg, except for the 213th district’s 6 candidates. This seat was left vacant after the murder of leading democrat Galina Starovoitova in 1999. It was won in the 1999 Duma election by Sergei Stepashin, who ran with the backing of Yabloko. However, his appointment as Chairman of the Russian Auditing Chamber and a 2000 by-election that yielded to low a turnout to validate the vote left this seat empty for the entire VII convocation of the Duma. The 2003 race will center be a contest – one with countrywide political implications — between State Duma Chairman Gennadi N. Seleznev and State Duma Deputy Chairwoman Irina M. Khakamada. Gennadii Seleznev heads the Rebirth of Russia Party (Partiya vozrozhdeniya Rossii – PVR), which is partially backed by the Kremlin for much the same reason as Sergei Glazev’s ‘Rodina’ party is being backed: to drain votes from the KPRF. Before moving to Moscow and the editor’s office of Pravda during the last days of the CPSU and USSR Seleznev’s career was mostly tied toLeningrad. He was born in the city, and graduated high school, worked in the Komsomol, graduated Leningrad State University’s Journalism Faculty, and began his journalistic career at the city paper Smena there. Seleznev has been a cooperative speaker for the Kremlin, and this is reflected in his party’s forming an electoral bloc with the Party of Life, the party of pro-Putin speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov. In the gubernatorial election Seleznev backed Matvienko, and his former son-in-law withdrew his candidacy perhaps at his former father-in-law’s urging. Seleznev is certainly preferable to Khakamada for the Kremlin. He can be a good compromise candidate to return to the Duma speaker’s chair should the overall Duma elections’ outcome not be sufficiently in the Kremlin’s favor to garner enough votes for a candidate for speaker from Edinaya Rossiya. Thus, he is sure to enjoy administrative resources from both Smolny and the Kremlin. His chief opponent in the race, Irina Khakamada, is already complaining about administrative resources being deployed in Seleznev’s favor.
Khakamada is the Russian State Duma’s Deputy Chair and Co-Chair of the Union of Rightist Forces. Since Khakamada holds the No. 2 slot on the SPS’s federal party list, it is unclear how motivated she will be to fight the political battle required to win in the district. She is neither a native of Petersburg, nor does her present Duma seat come from the 209th district. She was elected in Petersburg’s 207th in 1999 (see above). She recently claimed in SPS’s newspaper Pravoe Delo (St. Petersburg edition, No. 38, 23 September 2003, p. 5) that she always wanted to run in the 209th, but she ran in the 207th in 1999 out of respect for Stepashin. She has a residence permit in Moscow, where her family has long resided, though she frequently visits the city. She was often in the city just prior and during the September-October gubernatorial election, when she led negotiations with Matvienko regarding the SPS’s support for ‘candidate No. 1’. In the end, the Matvienko campaign outmaneuvered her. It strongly suggested if not promised that in return for the SPS’s support for Matvienko the local SPS leader Andrei Likhachev would be given the post of Petersburg government premier that was apparently to be created after the gubernatorial election. However, the government restructuring plan that was eventually adopted dropped the idea of instituting premiership. Instead, another SPS leader, former SPLA deputy, Mikhail Brodskii was given the post of the governor’s representative to the SPLA.
Khakamada could have some of her electorate cut into by the three other female candidates running in the district. In particular, the Development of Entrepreneurialship Party’s candidate, Saint Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance professor Natal’ya R. Petukhova, and president of the Russian youth organization ‘Young Russia’, Yelena V. Tabakova could shave some points from Khakamada’s results. Natalya Petukhova could be a real force in the race. In the 2000 by-election for the empty district seat, she won 26.13 percent of the vote finishing in second place behind. In the 2001 by election for the still empty seat (the 2000 by-election’s results were nullified because of low turnout), Petukova won 25 percent finishing in third. Tabakova has not only the ‘gender resources’, but she is Edinaya Rossiya’s candidate in the race, so administrative resources could come streaming her way should the Kremlin begin to smell blood from Seleznev and Khakamada. In Tabakova headed the alliance of doctors who helped defend the White House against the GKChP.
However, the other woman in the campaign, the LDPR’s candidate Yelena V. Babich is just as likely to drain a few, very few national-patriotic votes from Savelev and Seleznev. There is a personal family regarding Seleznev. Babich is married to the former husband of Seleznev’s daughter. The KPRF’s candidate and GorKom Secretary Aleksandr A. Krauze, a dotsent at St. Petersburg State University, is likely to challenge for a few of Seleznev’s votes from the left. On the other hand, Seleznev’s distancing himself from the communist ideology and his abandonment of the party could shield him from paying a price for the left’s unpopularity in the city.
The popularity of the murdered former Duma deputy of the district, the fervent democrat Galina Starovoitova is likely to rub off on Khakamada. Something she has tried to ensure by appearing at ceremonies commemorating her death three weeks before the vote. If the Kremlin does not assist Seleznev in dramatic fashion, say by withdrawing Tabakova, Khakamada will likely prevail.
210th (Northwestern) District
The race for this seat has been thrown wide open by the decision of its incumbent, statist businessman Konstantin Sevenard, to run for the Duma on a party list. Both democratic parties Yabloko and SPS have put forward candidates, Anatolii G. Golov and Sergei V. Gulyaev, respectively; something they have avoided doing in most other Petersburg single-mandate districts. Golov was the district’s deputy in the V and VI Duma convocations. In 1999 he finished a close second behind ‘against all’ and in the repeat election finished second behind Sevenard. He is co-chair of Russia’s Consumers’ Union and a close associate of the Consumers’ Union Chairman and former head of Yabloko’s Petersburg organization, Dmitrii Lenkov. Thus, the fortunes of Golov and his nearest circle, like those of Yabloko as a whole, have been on the decline, but he retains strong contacts in the city and ditrict.
Sergei Gulyaev is a journalist by profession, having worked at for the notorious national-patriotic propagandist Aleksandr Nevzorov as well as for ITAR-TASS. His nationalist credentials, including calls for the extradition of all Caucasians from the city, could undermine his appeal among democratic voters. However, he was elected a deputy in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly in December 2002 on the joint ‘SPS + Yabloko’ list with the support of local SPS leader Grigorii Tomchin and is a member of the SPS faction there. He defeated rather handily the incumbent Anatolii N. Krivenchenko, who is also running for 210th district Duma seat nominated by ‘Rodina.’ Krivenchenko, a lawyer educated at the same St. Petersburg State University Law Faculty as Vladimir Putin, was chairman of the Petersburg Legislative Assembly’s Standing Commission on the Structure of State Power, Local Administration, and Administrative-Territorial Structure. Krivenchenko is no stranger to local politics, being part of the perestroika generation of politicians, he was first elected a deputy and then chairman of the Sestroretsk Raion Soviet in 1990. In his first years in Petersburg politics in the mid- to late 1990s, he was an associate of Yurii Boldyrev, a founding, now former member of Yabloko. Krivenchenko joined the ‘Movement of Yurii Boldyrev’ and was a member of its political council. His previous experience earned him the No. 3 slot on Rodina’s Petersburg list as well as a candidacy in the 210th district.
The other candidate who might play a significant role in this district’s election is pornographer Sergei V. Pryanishnikov, who was temporarily a candidate for Petersburg governor. He dropped out of the race claiming that it was impossible to get anything done anywhere but at the federal level. His not insignificant popularity among segments of Petersburg’s youth could cut into either or both of the democrats’ electorate, assisting Krivenchenko, but Pryanishnikov is unlikely to make it to Moscow. It is of interest, but to difficult to gauge the importance, if any, of Igor V. Morozov’s candidacy. He is an initiator of the ‘Yabloko Without Yavlinskii’ movement which appeared over the summer and played some havoc with Yabloko and its relations with the SPS during the gubernatorial campaign. Academic G.A. Al’ev’s candidacy is the only other noticeable one by virtue of 10-second television campaign ad that has appeared locally here.
211th (Central) District
Initially, this race appeared to be like those of several others: a contest between a leading democrat, district incumbent and long-time Yabloko faction member in the State Duma Pyotr B. Shelishch, and a representative of the ‘party of power’, Edinaya Rossiya faction deputy in Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly, Nikita G. Ananov. The district’s candidates include three with ties to the party of power: two to Edinaya Rossiya and one to Governor Matvianko. Shelishch has had a long and strong position in the district for a decade. Shelishch has been elected the Duma deputy from the 211th district in all three post-Soviet Russian Duma elections in 1993, 1995, and 1999. In the last, he defeated the popular former mayor, the late Anatolii Sobchak. In this he might have been expected perhaps to incur the wrath of the Kremlin to the extent that Putin really strongly regards Sobchak as his political mentor. However, this tendency has been negated by several factors. First, with the removal of Yakovlev from power and Matvienko’s easy election victory, the old division in city politics between pro- and anti-Yakovlev forces has lost some of its salience. Second, Shelishch’s withdrawal from the Petersburg gubernatorial race and his eventual support Kremlin candidate Matvienko (rather than that of Yabloko’s candidate, Petersburg Legislative Assembly Yabloko faction chairman Mikhail Amosov) in return for her adoption of several of his gubernatorial campaign’s policy proposals subsumed under a so-called Social Contract (Obshchestvennyi dogovor) opened up the possibility of cooperation between pro-Smolny/pro-Kremlin forces and Shelishch. Not only may Shelishch be left alone by Smolny during the 211th district race, but he may be receiving indirect support from pro-Kremlin forces through the local branch of Federation Council speaker and Putin ally Sergei Mironov’s Party of Life, Petersburg’s Will (Volya Peterburga). Moreover, the last issue of the Edinaya Rossiya Petersburg organization’s newspaper, Vestnik Edinoi Rossii v Sankt-Peterburge, was devoted almost entirely to declarations of the party’s support of Shelishch. In sum, Shelishch appears now to be the sure victor in this race.
Whether Matvienko (and Shelishch for that matter) really puts much stock in their agreement o cooperate on the principles of the Social Contract remain to be seen, but at least during the campaign Shelishch is insisting on a continuation of his strong record on social policy (laws promoting the salaries of state budget workers, banning the compulsory time-based charges for local telephone calls, limits on the size and rate of growth for rental payments, housing rights for children and adoptees, and consumer rights) and is demanding that Matvienko join in forming a supervisory council to monitor implementation of the Social Contract made up of both city officials and representatives of society.
Before this change of fortunes, Nikita Ananov appeared likely to be the beneficiary of significant administrative largesse, and this would have allowed him to challenge Shelishch. Ananov has close ties to the city and district as well. He was born in Leningrad in 1954 and graduated the prestigious Mathematical-Mechanical Faculty of Leningrad State University, where he received a doctorate in 1979. In the 1980s he worked at various mechanical engineering enterprises and institutes in the city. In the early 1990s he was head of the scientific-production association ‘Kvartz’ and headed the association of conservatives-production factories. He was elected to all three convocations of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly in 1994, 1998, and 2002. The Petersburg Legislative Assembly seat’s district (46th) in which he has been elected is in the 211th Duma single-mandate seat’s district. There, heads the local Petersburg Pensioners’ Union with 5-10 thousand members, the initial core of a potentially strong Ananov electorate. Ananov can also count on considerable support from Smolny and perhaps even the Kremlin. He was a member of the Matvienko campaign’s drafting committee, set up to prepare a governing strategy for Matvienko’s incoming administration.
Several of the eight outsiders may have a marginal effect on the outcome. Indicted, imprisoned, and businessman awaiting trial Yurii T. Shutov is well-known in the city, having been a Legislative Assembly deputy and involved in many scandals, has a certain core, if small electorate. Aleksandr Belyaev, the last chairman of the communist era Leningrad Soviet, also has a residual electorate. Former Duma deputy Valerii V. Papshev appears to have something approaching a real though limited campaign. Papshev’s campaign workers can be seen handing out their literature in the district. Papshev’s campaign materials highlight his “active social work in the party Edinaya Rossiya” and life’s “service to the Fatherland” and high patriotism.” He was born into a military family and graduated Petersburg’s Nakhimov Naval School and Higher Naval School. He is one of the founders of the movement ‘Siloviki Rossii –za Prezidenta V.V. Putina!’ His work in Edinaya Rossiya is supplemented by his work in the ‘Dialog’ centers created by pro-Kremlin and anti-Yakovlev forces and the Northwest Federal District during the election campaign for the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly in December 2002. The Northwest FO supposedly established public centers for citizens to which to bring complaints, requests and appeals. The ‘Dialog’ centers were clearly an effort to mobilize voters in favor of Kremlin candidates. Indeed, the centers were accompanied by the creation of a ‘Dialog’ faction in the legislative assembly.
212th (Southwestern) District
The incumbent, Yabloko’s Sergei A. Popov, is the favorite in the 212th. Popov is a native Leningrader brought up and schooled in the city, graduating Physics-Mathematics School, the Mathematic-Mechanical and Law Faculties of Leningrad State University. In 1972 he began teaching high mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute. Popovthen joined the Executive Committee of the Guild of Russian Lawyers and became Vice President of the International Collegium of Lawyers ‘Saint Petersburg’. He was elected to the State Duma in the 212th in both 1995 and 1999 and stands a good chance to remain on Okhotnyi Ryad. Popov, along with St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly ‘Yabloko’ faction chairman Mikhail Amosov, have been at the forefront of defending St. Petersburg’s rights vis-à-vis the federal Center. They have been highly critical of the federal government, in particular the Finance Ministry, for failing to fulfill its obligations to the city under the federal budget law. In 1999, Popov, won a court case against the Finance Ministry for such practices, but the city never received the funds that the court had ruled were illegally diverted from St. Petersburg. This followed a number of other well-known cases he has won against official instances going back to 1990 when he won a case against the Leningrad Executive Committee (LenIspolKom) when it parceled out virtually for free several free plots of land in the city. Popov continues his vigilance regarding Petersburg’s financial rights vis-a-visthe federal center. He voted against the draft 2004 budget for its neglect of funding for Petersburg and a federal-regional revenue-sharing ration of 62/38 percent. He has also been a strong supporter of various social causes, including a recent case he filed with the Constitutional Court regarding operation of the pension fund..
Popov will be aided in his quest to remain in the Duma by likely split-voting among both leftisit forces and pro-Kremlin centrist forces. The leftist vote will be divided between the KPRF’s candidate, Svyatoslav M. Sokol (the KPRF’s Leningrad ObKom Second Secretary and FPRF TsK member) and ‘Rodina’ candidate Vadim N. Voitanovskii. Svyatoslov Sokol is a Duma deputy from the KPRF. Though not born in Leningrad, he has been a resident of the city for 42 years. He is a candidate of economics and a deputy of the parliament of the Union of Belorus and Russia. Sokol took over the KPRF Petersburg GorKom first secretaryship in February of this year backed by the KPRF’s chairman Gennadii Zyuganov. He has been a Duma deputy in both the VI and VII convocations and currently heads the Duma Committee for Industry, Construction, and Scientific Technology. A central plank in his electoral platform is the revival of industry in Petersburg. His voting record in the Duma is typical of a KPRF deputy. He has voted against: the Putin’s reform of the Federation Council, retirement privileges for Yeltsin, the Putin Labor Code, mandatory auto insurance, lowering of social welfare for military servicemen, the sale of land, the federal law against extremism, and the ‘ban’ on referenda. He has voted for: Chubais’s resignation, no confidence in the government, price controls on electric energy, raising the minimum wage, the fight against corruption, and the repeal of taxes on prescription drugs.
Although he is likely tocapture the overwhelmingmajority of the leftist electorate, the ‘Rodina’ party’s support for Vadim Voitanovskii my enable him to win some left-centrist votes. Voitanovskii is originally from the Crimea, he has good ties in the city and district where he has lived since coming to study at the Leningrad Institute of Theatre, Music, and Cinematography in 1979. He is a deputy of the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly in its seven-member ‘Sport Russia’ (Sportivnaya Rossiya) faction, headed by Denis Volchek, an ‘authoritative’ businessman in the city. Voitanovskii himself is a successful businessman, General Director of the Closed Stock-Holding Company ‘Traiv’ a holding company for five Petersburg window-production firms. Traiv won a silver medal in the international ‘Prestige and Quality Europe 2000’ competition for new technology. In June 2000, he became a deputy of the Gagarin Municipal Council. In December 2000 he was elected to St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly assembly’s previous convocation and became a member of the pro-Yakovlev faction ‘Three Hundredth Anniversary of Petersburg’ (Tristoletiya Peterburga). Voitanovskii’s Petersburg assembly district (the 31st) is located in the 212th Duma seat district. In 2002 he graduated the Northwest Academy of State Service specializing in law. In 2003 Voitanovskii ran for governor this past fall winning less than 1% of the vote. Though running as a candidate from ‘Rodina’, Voitanovskii’s appeal to leftist voters is limited by his business orientation and past ties with the Yakovlev clan. Moreover, his competitor on the left, communist Sokol, has a strong record of protecting the city’s interests of industrial enterprises; a central plank of Rodina.
The pro-Kremlin centrist forces are potentially divided between Viktor L. Yevtukhov, Aleksandr R. Salaev, and Inga S. Biryukova. Viktor Yevtukhov was once coordinator of the pro-Kremlin ‘Yedinstvo’ (Unity) faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. He is now deputy coordinator of the seven-member ‘Party of Life’ faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly headed by former assembly speaker Sergei Tarasov. He was nominated to run in the 212th Duma seat district by the centrist-left electoral “speakers’ bloc” made up of the moderate communist Duma speaker Gennadii Seleznev’s Party of Rebirth of Russia and centrist Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov’s Party of Life. Thus, Yevtukhov could take votes from both the left and the center. He has ties in the city and the district. He was born in the city and entered its Makarov High Military Engineering School, then the army, then Leningrad’s N. A. Voznesenskii Institute of Economics and Finance, and then in 1998 the special branch of the St. Petersburg State University’s Law Faculty, where his a doctoral candidate studying economics and stock markets of Western countries. He is Vice President of the St. Petersburg Soccer Federation. His Petersburg assembly seat district (33rd) is located in the 212th district. He has been elected twice in the 33rd and headed the SPLA’s Standing Commission on Economics and Ownership for several years. His campaign platform includes: creation of an effective system for the use of revenues from rent on the use of natural resources for the population’s welfare; a more even distribution of federal tax revenues and budget funds between Petersburg and the federal center; introduce and annually increase special Petersburg salary increases for workers who receive salaries from the state budget; special development programs for each Petersburg raion; the drafting of integrated projects for the development of industrial and scientific enterprises and organizations in the district; provide access for every citizen to a modernized city transport sytem;
Aleksandr Salaev is an assistant of Duma Edinaya Rossiya faction leader Vladimir Pekhtin and a member of the political council of Edinaya Rossiya’s Petersburg organization, the political council of which resolvedon 27 October to support Salaev’s campaign; This association wth the ‘party of power’ alone makes him a potential contender given likely access to some administrative and party resources. Salaev is also president of the Petersburg foundation ‘Salaev’ for the development of social charity, which could be made a source of campaign financing. Inga Biryukova is a senior teacher at the St. Petersburg State University’s department of political psychology and, more importantly, director of the social foundation ‘Narodnyi Kontrol’ (NK or People’s Monitoring). NK appeared suddenly on Petersburg’s political stage during the gubernatorial election this past autumn. It disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, but only after it has used its public reputation to endorse the Kremlin’s candidate Matvienko. This suggests that it was the creature of Matvienko’s backers. Among other things, it posed as a fighter against bureaucracy and the people’s monitor of the election campaign. It established a good working relationship with liberal candidates Mikhail Amosov, the Yabloko Party’s candidate, and Pyotr Shchelish. The NK’s main purpose was to back Matvienko’s program and candidacy. It announced noted that in response to its request of gubernatorial candidates to present to the foundation their campaign programs, it had received by the next week first Matvienko’s program, Shchelish’s draft program ‘Social Contract’, and materials for Amosov’s program. It had received nothing from Anna Markova’s campaign. A 15 August NK statement gave its strongest support to Matvienko: “Having studied the programs, the council of the organization NK made the decision to support the candidacy of Valentina Matvienko…” Should Biryukova’s campaign somehow takeoff, it could receive backing from Smolny and/or Kremlin circles.
Popov’s advantage, derived from the fact that the democratic or rightist electorate is the only one on the political spectrum that will not be divided by split voting, was almost undermined when the SPS appeared ready to nominate Pyotr Mostovoi to run in this district. The decision not to run Mostovoi under pressure from Yabloko makes Popov’s victory an almost sure bet, excluding the authorities’ massive investment of administrative resources behind one candidate and/or its manipulation of the vote counting. The Party for the Development of Entrepreneurialship’s (PRE) nomination of a candidate, A.V. Dudevich, could take some votes away from Popov to allow a Voitanovskii, Salev, or even Yevtukhov to challenge him. Dudevich was born in Leningrad and graduated the Faculty of Economic Theory and Policy of the St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance (SPGUEF). He successfully defended his candidate’s dissertation under PRE leader Oksana Dmitrieva’s tutelage. In May-September 1998 he was an advisor of the Russian Minister of Labor and Social Development. In September 1998 he became a senior fellow at the SPGUEF. In March 2000 he became an aide to Deputy Chairwoman of the Duma Budget and Tax Committee, PRE leader Dmitrieva. His platform promotes a two-pension policy for workers in the Leningrad blockade, reinstitution of pensions for working pension-age citizens, adoption of a federal law on housing credits, adoption of a law on support for small business, and an increase in funding for education, health, and science. Given Dudevich’s close association with Dmitrieva it is no surprise that the PRE has strongly backed Dudevich. He is the only PRE candidate in Petersburg’s single-mandate districts among its pictured in a television campaign advertisement alongside the party’s leader.
213th (Southern) District
The strength of 213th district incumbent Oksana Dmitrieva’s position in the city and the district probably explains why it has the fewest candidates of any Petersburg single-mandate district – 6. Dmitrieva has been a Duma deputy in all its post-Soviet convocations. She was born in the city and was a leading member of Yabloko’s organization in the city until she left the party in 1998 to form her own party. Although her party put up a series of candidates to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly elections in December 2002, none were elected. In 1999 she was elected from the 213th district, and two previous times she was elected on the Yabloko party’s federal list.
Yabloko has put up against her a strong candidate in Natalya L. Yevdokimova, who could drain a significant number of votes away from Dmitrieva, including the limited albeit women’s (feminist) vote. Whereas Dmirieva was always close to the Yakovlev camp, being aclose froend of the former governor’s wife, Yevdokimova has always been in strong opposition to Yakovlev. This could bring to the latter some backing from pro-Smolny and pro-Kremlin forces. This may have already come in the form of Matvienko’s removal of Nevskii Raion Administration head, with whom Yevdokimova had a running feud over her distribution of the raion’s reserve spending, the so-called collective corrections to the city budget. Yevdokimova is no stranger to the district, having been elected to the Petersburg assembly from the 34th district, which is in the Duma 213th district seat’s territory. She studies and worked in the city during the 1970s and 1980s, and she is the author of over 50 acting and 15 draft St. Petersburg laws on social policy. She is the chair of the Petersburg assembly’s standing commissions on social policy and on health and the environment.
Yevdokimova and Dmitrieva may divide the democratic vote such that an opening is provided to the one candidate who can contend for major support from Smolny: member of the Edinaya Rossiya faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, Oleg Ye. Sergeev. Sergeev, like the other top contenders, has a long record in the city’s and district’s politics. A doctor, he worked in the district as junior researcher and candidate for a doctorate in medicine at two children’s medical institutes. Another political son of perestroika, he was nominated in 1990 by the City Children’s Diagnostic Center located in the district to run for city deputy. He has been city deputy since 1994 and was a candidate of the ‘Yurii Boldyrev bloc’, giving Sergeev a Yabloko association too. His assembly district seat (50th) is located in the 213th Duma seat district. In 2000 he left the Boldyrev faction in the assembly and joined the ‘Edinstvo – Sankt-Peterburg’ (Unity – St. Petersburg) faction. In 2002 he joined the ‘Yedinstvo – Narodnaya Partiya’ after the ‘Edinstvo’ (Unity) faction split. After his re-election to the assembly in December 2002 he entered the Edinaya Rossiya faction. He supported Matvienko for governor as well and therefore could expect support in return. Thus, Sergeev’s background allows him to contend for some of the democratic electorate (Yabloko’s electorate and former electorate) as well as establishment electorate and resources. This race, therefore, shapes up as another democrat (Dmitrieva and Yevdokimova) versus party of power (Sergeev) contest.