United Russia: under-the-carpet campaign

The United Russia party's campaign team is a miniature copy of the party itself: it involves representatives of major political groups that fight for the influence of the president. Formally, the campaign team is headed by Yuri Volkov, head of the United Russia's executive committee and a representative of the security structures. He is called the commander who carries out general oversight and control; the real captain is his first deputy Sergei Popov, head of the Unity 1999 executive committee.

He conducts all meetings and is the operative leader. Another deputy head of the headquarters is former deputy head of the main internal presidential policy department Leonid Ivlev - he appeared in the headquarters as a protege of the head of the Kremlin administration Vladislav Surkov and is in charge of cooperation with regions. According to some data, he managed to distance himself in time from his Kremlin patron and hence will suffer less from the dismissal of Alexander Voloshin and weakened position of Surkov than United Russia's main creative member Eldar Yanbukhtin, who was recruited by Surkov from the Union of Right-Wing Forces. Yanbukhtin barely has a chance to continue working for the party after the end of the December election campaign: his position has already been given to head of the Arnold-Group company Arnold Uvarov, a protege of the party leader Interior Minster Boris Gryzlov.

Executive officer of the headquarters, Interior Ministry Lieutenant General Sergei Kudimov is also a protege of Boris Gryzlov. However, according to our sources, he is unofficially subordinate to the financial director of the election headquarters Viktor Abramov, who fulfilled the same function in the Unity and is in close contact with Sergei Shoigu.

The main strategic decisions concerning United Russia's campaign have already been made; the last stage - media propaganda - has already been paid for and launched. According to our data, the party has carried out an expensive "door to door" campaign in 162 districts, which cost according to independent PR-specialists from between $80,000 and $235,000 depending on the district.

Communist Party: Imperceptible campaign

Party leader Gennady Zyuganov assumed the responsibilities of campaign manager. However, he distributed the main responsibilities for cooperation with the media and campaign funding between his deputies Valentin Kuptsov and Leonid Ivanchenko. Ivan Melnikov supervises the work of the headquarters in general. Melnikov says, "For us, the day of our publicity campaign in the media coincided with the 66th anniversary of the Great October revolution. We held a demonstration with a distinct election orientation: assembled a stage with a large monitor at Lubyanka Square and demonstrated election reels of the Communist Party for the first time."

The Communist Party also intends to actively participate in free television debates. According to the headquarters, the participation of Gennady Zyuganov, Elena Drapeko, Nikolai Gubenko, Nikolai Kondratenko, Zhores Alferov, and Viktor Ilyukhin in discussions will be enough to increase the popularity rating of the party. That is why the party decided not to participate in paid debates, "It is too expensive and not very efficient," confessed Melnikov. Instead, the Communist Party will broadcast its reels on regional television channels before the elections. The Communist Party also rejected outdoor advertising, considering it expensive and inefficient. Instead, the Communist Party has prepared a package of publicity leaflets, including faction's reports on results of Duma voting, the party's election platform, as well as commodities with the Communist Party logos. Besides, the communists are ready to launch a company in the press. Overall, the Communist Party is prepared to spend 150 million roubles on its election campaign.

The Union of Right-Wing Forces: Power campaign

The headquarters of the Union of Right-Wing Forces entered the campaign advertising period headed by former Gazprom-Media General Director Alfred Koch. His selection as campaign manager is considered a major achievement for the party. Koch says that he is responsible for everything; however, this is only partially true. After the dismissal of former main political consultant Marina Litvinovich, who as the Union of Right-Wing Forces members say "spoiled the whole campaign", the position of deputy campaign manager was given to Andrei Trapeznikov, a member of the RAO UES board of directors, responsible for cooperation with the media and creative work. The head of the party's executive committee Viktor Nekrutenko is responsible for cooperation with regional organizations. So although Koch is the official leader of the campaign, in fact the work is managed by Andrei Trapeznikov and RAO UES head Anatoly Chubais.

According to Koch, the present publicity campaign of the Union of Right-Wing Forces will differ little from the 1999 election campaign. The Union of Right-Wing Forces will participate in election debates, broadcast its reels on television, and place billboards across Russia. "In our election debates we will stake our fate on Anatoly Chubais and Boris Nemtsov. Irina Khakamada, who is second on the party election list, cannot participate in the free debates, as she also stands in the elections as a single mandate deputy." Koch, who is called the "best polemist" of Russia will participate in the debates as the number two of the St. Petersburg party list.

The Union of Right-Wing Forces intends to devote most attention to the NTV, ORT, and RTR television networks during the publicity period. The party is also disseminating free of charge the newspaper Pravoe Delo (The Right Cause) as its own election resource. According to unofficial data, the Union of Right-Wing Forces is ready to buy columns in a number of central newspapers, in particular, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta. "We will spend the legally permitted amount on our campaign of 250 million roubles," Alfred Koch says, "The money will be spent not only on publicity in the media but also advertising."

YABLOKO: Campaign for the poor

The party's deputy leader Sergei Ivanenko and Sergei Mitrokhin are leading the YABLOKO campaign team. According to Ivanenko, it is more difficult to carry out an election campaign for YABLOKO than for others, primarily owing to a lack of funding. Until recently, the party's major sponsor was YUKOS - however, after YUKOS head Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested, Grigory Yavlinsky confessed that the funding from YUKOS stopped. "Our election campaign is simple," says Sergei Ivanenko. "We place our billboards across Russia, distribute publicity materials, and carry out a "door to door" campaign communicating with our voters directly."

The YABLOKO stresses that the party mainly stakes on free television debates as "broadcasting and the press are too expensive for us in the present situation". However, the YABLOKO has still concluded a contract with the "Freedom of Speech" NTV television programme and promised to broadcast several advertising reels on state television networks. At the same time, the YABLOKO does not try to conceal that "despite the unusual election campaign tactics, they hope for loyalty from their electorate which does not care whether the YABLOKO agitates for itself or not."

Ivanenko also said, "It takes considerable effort to oppose our competitors. We could have ignored the attacks on us, but the rules of the genre require the opposite." The Agency for Strategic Communications that has become well known after the Prosecutor General's Office searched its office, is helping the YABLOKO to observe the genre rules and carry out its publicity campaign.

YABLOKO stresses that all analytical election work is being done by the party itself, as no one knows YABLOKO's potential voters better than party members.

Ivanenko does not know whether YABLOKO will be able to collect at least the 250 million roubles allowed by law, but he hopes that the party will have enough money for this campaign. "We are a party of bright politicians and we do not need to spend money on their promotion," says Ivanenko.

LDPR: one actor campaign

The liberal Democratic Party of Russia has prepared for the elections in a very peculiar way: it has neither a campaign team nor a campaign manager. Instead, it has the talent of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, for whom the present elections are the fourth. Although, formally the leader's son and head of the Duma faction Igor Lebedev and Duma deputy Yegor Solomatin are in charge of the election campaign, Zhirinovsky, who has decided to reject the usual headquarters, allows them to resolve only technical issues.

As Solomatin says, the latter are installing billboards, distributing advertising booklets with the party's platform and broadcasting a 52-minute film "Zhirinovsky in the people's eyes" and distributing a CD "Vote for LDPR". The party intends to spend the sum permitted by the law on its election campaign. The majority of the money will be spent on publicity in the media, primarily television. "Of course, we mostly stake on Vladimir Zhirinovsky's charisma and his speeches on television will become the main advertisement of LDPR," Solomatin says. LDPR also plans to publish articles in leading periodicals, where Zhirinovsky will make comments on the most important world events.

"We do not need to spend money on printing booklets, leaflets, and posters - we do it every year and there is always some of these products in store. We do not need to spend money on cooperation with PR-agencies especially, as we cooperate with them all year round. And we do not have any PR specialists as we carry out our PR campaigns ourselves."

The People's Party: regional campaign

Its leader Gennady Raikov is coordinating the work of the People's Party headquarters - he makes final decisions on election initiatives and their appropriateness.

Raikov has entrusted his first deputy Valerie Galchenko with heading the campaign on a daily basis. Glachenko says, "One minute of airtime on the First Channel network costs slightly more than $100,000. We are not a poor party, but it is a tremendous sum of money for us and the density of our presence on central television networks is rather questionable at present." Overall, the People's Party plans to spend about 80 million roubles on its publicity campaign, with most of this amount spent on placing the party's reels on state-owned television networks.

In August, the future leader of the bloc Sergei Glazyev stated that "We do not carry out a PR campaign." But he admitted that the famous political consultant and Deputy General director of the First Channel Marat Gelman "suggests many ideas for us".

It had previously been rumoured that the Kremlin had charged Gelman with promoting the new patriotic bloc as alternative for the Communist Party. The rumour grew after Dmitri Rogozin, head of the Duma international committee and presidential special envoy to Kaliningrad region, joined the bloc. However, after he headed the headquarters of Motherland, the Duma started gossiping that Gelman had stopped working with the bloc.

After the coalition was created, it transpired that it was very difficult to promote the bloc due to its heterogeneity. Since the bloc was formed from representatives of different parties and movements, with many existing on paper only, it is marred in organizational confusion. The headquarters are not even sure who is promoting the bloc in regions: "sometimes this is carried out by local branches of party members of the bloc, at other times, this is done by strange people who have taken the money and disappeared." As a result, the election strategy of the Motherland, has concentrated on the promotion of the bloc leaders Sergei Glazyev and Dmitri Rogozin. Their teams and headquarters in single-mandate districts are responsible, as they also stand in the elections as single-mandate deputies.

Motherland will start advertising in the central media - federal television networks and central periodicals v only during the very last stage. In particular, according to our data, in November Rogozin and Glazyev plan to participate in the "Freedom of Speech" talk-show twice each. So far, Motherland's leaders are touring the country. For instance, on November 3, Glazyev set off on a two-week tour around Russia. Russian musicians - Lube band - will be aiding the bloc: soon it starts its new tour "Vote for Motherland".

See also:

State Duma elections 2003

Kommersant-Vlast, November 17, 2003