#3
Free car, TVs lure Siberians to scandal-hit poll
By Peter Graff
MOSCOW, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Siberian voters, offered the chance to win a car or TV if they went to the polls, turned out en masse on Sunday to bring an end to a scandal-plagued contest for control of Russia's huge, diamond-rich Yakutia region.
The central election commission declared the run-off valid after turn-out surged to more than 70 percent, well above the 50 percent minimum, thanks in part to offers of discounts on utility bills and tickets to a lottery for voters.
Results will be available on Monday in a contest noted for scandal and mudslinging even by the shady standards of Russia's high-stakes regional politics.
Russia also held first-round elections for regional leadership in the two southern provinces of Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygeya on Sunday. But eyes were on the Yakutia poll.
Newspaper Vremya Novostei called it "the most scandalous vote in the history of regional elections" after court cases, press smear campaigns and accusations the Kremlin had pushed out incumbent Mikhail Nikolayev for a diamond industry kingpin.
Vyacheslav Shtyrov, head of diamond monopoly Alrosa, won 45 percent of the vote in a first round last month and was the favourite in Sunday's runoff against the first-round runner-up, businessman Fedut Tumusov.
FINAL BLOW
But that was only after two-term incumbent Nikolayev was hounded out of the race by criticism from officials in Moscow, including the head of the Central Election Commission.
The final blow was delivered by President Vladimir Putin himself, who summoned both Nikolayev and Shtyrov to the Kremlin to give an award to Shtyrov. Nikolayev promptly stepped down and told his supporters to back Shtyrov, his one-time bitter rival.
To prevent low turnout spoiling the run-off, voters were offered tickets to a lottery with a million-rouble ($33,000) prize fund including a car, washing machines, televisions and stereos, despite a criminal case launched against organisers of a similar lottery for the first round, Vremya Novostei reported.
Voters were also offered vouchers for discounts on utility bills and chances to buy cheap cooking oil, chicken and condensed milk.
Provincial leaders amassed huge powers in Russia under Putin's predecessor Boris Yeltsin, often having wide control of the mineral wealth buried under vast swathes of the world's largest country.
But the new Russian leader has reined them in by taking on powers to sack them, appointing federal envoys to oversee them and kicking them out of the upper house of parliament in Moscow.
Under Putin, the governor of the Pacific coastal Primorye region, once considered among the most powerful of all regional bosses, was forced to step down.
Last year election officials struck the incumbent governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Rutskoi, from the ballot on the eve of a poll, citing campaign irregularities. Rutskoi called himself a victim of Kremlin meddling.
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