Olympic city votes in test for Russian president
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's autonomous credentials were on trial on Sunday as Olympic city Sochi voted for a mayor after a campaign which the defiance said was weighted in favour of the Kremlin candidate.
The vote in the 2014 Winter Olympics host city follows pledges from Medvedev to confirm Russian democracy, which critics say was undermined by his antecedent Vladimir Putin, now prime minister.
But the two leading unfriendliness candidates say the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Anatoly Pakhomov, has exerted pressure on state workers to vote, dominated the local news, banned all political posters and paid-for boob tube campaign ads.
"The election is the worst in years. 100-percent dishonest," said Yury Dzaganiya, candidate for the resistance Communist Party, after voting on Sunday. "We see the authorities promise one thing and we see the exact opposite on the ground."
With a state budget of $6 billion (4.08 billion pounds), the 2014 Games in Russia's most popular seaside resort are a pet project of Putin. The new mayor is likely to enter in the Olympic opening ceremony if he completes his full five-year term.
"The elections pose a direct challenge to the Russian authorities," said Vladimir Milov, an adviser to antipathy Moscow administrator Boris Nemtsov, who is also a front-runner in the election. "Whoever is elected will have effective veto power over plans for the Games."
Twenty-six candidates initially declared for the vote, including a multi-millionaire media tycoon, the man whom British police want to question over the London murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko and a celebrity ballerina.
"A full-fledged political struggle is taking place in Sochi," Medvedev said in an interview with disapproval newspaper Novaya Gazeta this month. "The more striking these events are, the better it is for our electoral system, for democracy in Russia."
The vote in the 2014 Winter Olympics host city follows pledges from Medvedev to confirm Russian democracy, which critics say was undermined by his antecedent Vladimir Putin, now prime minister.
But the two leading unfriendliness candidates say the Kremlin-backed incumbent, Anatoly Pakhomov, has exerted pressure on state workers to vote, dominated the local news, banned all political posters and paid-for boob tube campaign ads.
"The election is the worst in years. 100-percent dishonest," said Yury Dzaganiya, candidate for the resistance Communist Party, after voting on Sunday. "We see the authorities promise one thing and we see the exact opposite on the ground."
With a state budget of $6 billion (4.08 billion pounds), the 2014 Games in Russia's most popular seaside resort are a pet project of Putin. The new mayor is likely to enter in the Olympic opening ceremony if he completes his full five-year term.
"The elections pose a direct challenge to the Russian authorities," said Vladimir Milov, an adviser to antipathy Moscow administrator Boris Nemtsov, who is also a front-runner in the election. "Whoever is elected will have effective veto power over plans for the Games."
Twenty-six candidates initially declared for the vote, including a multi-millionaire media tycoon, the man whom British police want to question over the London murder of former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko and a celebrity ballerina.
"A full-fledged political struggle is taking place in Sochi," Medvedev said in an interview with disapproval newspaper Novaya Gazeta this month. "The more striking these events are, the better it is for our electoral system, for democracy in Russia."
