RUSSIA: IRINA KHAKAMADA CAMPAIGNING IN PERM AND MOSCOW DURING HER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

Record ID: 347631

  • Title: RUSSIA: IRINA KHAKAMADA CAMPAIGNING IN PERM AND MOSCOW DURING HER PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN.
  • Date: 1st March 2004
  • Summary: (W4) PERM, RUSSIA (MARCH 6, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. TRACK: PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IRINA KHAKAMADA WALKING ALONG STREET OF PERM, GETTING INTO CAR. 0.10 2. GV: STREET OF PERM, TRAFFIC. 0.16 3. SCU: OF IRINA KHAKAMADA IN CAR. 0.24 4. CU: MONITOR SHOWING IRINA KHAKAMADA IN TELEVISION STUDIO. 0.28 5. WS: OF PERM TELEVISION STUDIO WIT
  • Embargoed: 16th March 2004 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PERM AND MOSCOW, RUSSIA
  • Country: Russia
  • Reuters ID: LVA3PKBCIGO4ZFBJ46BXC2R3UXNU
  • Story Text: Russian liberal doggedly presses on with
    presidential campaign.



    Liberal Irina Khakamada, far back in the pack
    trailing incumbent Vladimir Putin in Russia's presidential
    election, is doggedly pursuing her campaign, telling voters
    change is possible - next time round.

    Putin says he is not campaigning for the March 14
    contest, but still dominates newscasts. In contrast,
    Khakamada engaged in a day of now rare tub-thumping in the
    snow-covered Urals city of Perm last Friday (March 6)
    where demoralised liberals hope she will score well.

    Opinion polls give her just two percent support three
    months after two liberal groups were routed in
    parliamentary elections. Putin stands at 80 percent and five
    challenger s, led by Nikolai Kharitonov of the
    communists, have up to five percent each.

    Khakamada said she wanted to help rally voters who,
    like her, believed Putin was building an authoritarian
    society. She debated local politicians on television and
    addressed reporters in Perm, where her Union of Right-Wing
    Forces (SPS) party bucked the trend in December and
    captured an impressive 13 percent of the vote.

    On the streets of the scruffy industrial city of one
    million, where entire factories were relocated as the
    Soviet army resisted Hitler's invasion, voters paid scant
    attention. Most had little doubt Putin would easily win a
    second term
    "Its unknown what Khakamada will do if she becomes
    President, and Putin - we have already seen how he works,
    the results of his work. I would want to give my vote to
    somebody who already proved he can do something," said Perm
    resident Larissa.

    The daughter of a Japanese Communist who came to the
    Soviet Union, Khakamada acknowledges that her sex and mixed
    ethnic background count against her in a society where
    political awareness is limited 12 years after the fall of
    communism.

    Voters' response has only confirmed her concerns.

    "The last thing we need is a Japanese to run Russia,"
    said Alexander.

    "She [Khakamada] means nothing to me. I know very
    little about her and a woman-president in Russia is
    impossible," said another voter, Valery.

    But Khakamada seem to have won some support among
    students who she addressed later in the day.

    "I think its already time for a woman [to rule Russia],
    there was such a period: after Peter the Great, there was
    Catherine the Great, Elizabeth, I think its a period now in
    Russia for a woman to come to power," said Eduard, a
    student from the Perm pedagogical university.

    Khakamada accuses Putin of using the campaign to crush
    Chechen rebels for political gain, of manipulating
    television and of turning the election into a farce by
    avoiding his challengers.

    "Let's unite our votes and join in protest, not join
    behind Khakamada, but just to show that we protest, that we
    have another alternative choice and we would like to see it
    represented, and then we would create a strong political
    movement," she said in a radio interview to Echo Moskvy
    station upon returning to Moscow.

    She maintains pro-market liberals, Russia's only openly
    pro-Western parties, alienated voters in December by
    sniping at each other and associating too closely with
    wealthy businessmen.

    A new movement, Khakamada said, had to be built from
    grass roots to make liberal thought the motor of change it
    was during the "perestroika" reforms that preceded the end
    of Soviet rule.


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