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Yavlinsky's star rises among Russia's middle class
 
Financial Times
Thursday, March 23, 2000

The travel agency Big Tour on Tverskoy Boulevard in the centre of Moscow is selling package holidays to well-to-do Russians. Between handing out glossy booklets and answering calls about sunny resorts in the Aegean, the employees talk politics.

Natasha, an energetic 29-year old cashier at the tour company, will vote on Sunday for Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of the liberal Yabloko party, in Russia's presidential election. "I don't like any of the candidates, but I decided to vote for Yavlinsky because he is the only alternative to [Vladimir] Putin [the acting president]. Putin never looks straight into people's eyes and an honest man cannot hide his eyes. He may not be a Stalin, but I think he is going to lead the country in that direction." Natasha is one of the Moscow's fledgling middle-class who can afford a holiday in Greece. Her view is characteristic of many prosperous Muscovites who find in the veteran of the Russian liberal movement an alternative to the one-time KGB officer.

Nobody in Russia doubts that Mr Putin will win the election and his popularity stretches across different time zones and political classes. Maria Volkenstein, the head of Validata, an independent think-tank for public opinion studies, says that Mr Putin appeals as much to the generation of 30-something businessmen in Moscow as to elderly and impoverished Russians in the Far East.

However, according to Liliya Shevtsova, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, Mr Yavlinsky's ratings have almost doubled in the past 10 days and could be between 7 and 10 per cent. Among internet users he is ahead of Mr Putin.

Mr Yavlinsky has thus emerged as a credible threat to Mr Putin's first round majority. This has been met by a media offensive from Mr Putin's supporters on Mr Yavlinsky and his party. The state-controlled TV channel this week accused Mr Yavlinsky of several "crimes" from having plastic surgery to taking money for his campaign from the west, notably from George Soros, a US financier blamed by many Russians for the financial crisis of two years ago.

The effect on some middle-class Moscovites was not what Mr Putin's campaign might have hoped for. "I was not sure how to vote," says Leonid Borushnoi, a computer technician. "But after I saw how the official TV channel dished dirt on all other candidates I lost any desire to vote for Putin. I will vote either for Yavlinsky or against everyone."

In the past Mr Yavlinsky drew his support mainly from the highly educated but low-paid intelligentsia which lost much of its income and social security from the liberal reforms of the 1990s. But for the first time in more than a decade, his party seems to be gaining the support of those who have benefited from reform.

Aleskei Parfenenok, who owns a medium-sized travel company, says the biggest argument against Mr Putin is uncertainty. "We do not know what he is going to do when he is in power. He talks about bringing order, but I fear this could result in a serious clampdown on private business."

Some observers believe opposition to Mr Putin among young middle-class Russians is giving momentum to the formation of a coalition of liberal democratic forces previously scattered across several parties. "An important result of the presidential elections could be the creation of a sizeable party of the right which would define Russia's future in the 21st century," says Mr Yavlinsky.

Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the Centre of Strategic Studies, an independent think-tank says: "In the past few days we have seen an overwhelming swing of support among the middle class audience towards Yavlinsky. For the first time, Yavlinsky built up his campaign properly and managed to get a message across that he is the only obstacle in the way of the totalitarian regime."

Middle class or not, many still feel Mr Putin has changed the way they feel about Russia. "He is a strong man of strict convictions and he is the only man who can lead the country out of crisis," says Angela, a 33-year-old single mother who works next-door to Natasha. "He speaks foreign languages and I like the way he talks to other nations." See Comment and Analysis

 

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