RUSSIA: A party slate headed by popular Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov swept to victory in widely watched city council elections on Sunday, while a struggling coalition of Western-style democratic parties appeared to win enough votes to survive as a force in Russian politics.
The election had been seen as a preview of parties' strengths, as Russia heads toward 2007 parliamentary elections. At issue was whether pro-Western liberals would have any role in a national political scene dominated by the ruling party, the Communists and two nationalist-populist parties.
In early results yesterday, the ruling United Russia party led with 46 per cent, followed by the Communist Party with 18 per cent and Yabloko-United Democrats with 12 per cent. The nationalist Liberal Democratic party, with 8 per cent, was falling below the hurdle of 10 per cent support required to win seats allocated by party preference.
Yabloko, known as a defender of human rights, and the Union of Right Forces, a strong backer of free-market economics, played key roles in promoting post-Soviet reforms in the 1990s.
However, their influence plummeted in recent years and, after competing against each other in the 2003 parliamentary election, both failed to pass a 5 per cent barrier to win seats.
For the city council election, the two parties and some small liberal allies came together as the Yabloko-United Democrats.
After more than a decade of failed attempts to find electoral co-operation among rival pro- Western democrats, supporters hope this effort could boost the showing of liberal forces in the 2007 national elections.
Many observers saw Sunday's balloting as do-or-die for the Yabloko-led coalition.
One nationalist party - Rodina, or "Motherland" - was thrown off the ballot on Friday after the Supreme Court ruled that it had aired a televised advertisement that incited inter-ethnic discord.
The advert showed three dark-skinned men from the Caucasus munching watermelon in a Moscow courtyard, then throwing the chewed rinds into the path of a young blonde woman pushing a baby carriage. The words that flashed on the screen said: "Let's clean our city of trash."
Rodina's leader, Dmitri Rogozin, insisted that the advert referred to making the city physically cleaner.