#6 - JRL 7286
Novaya Gazeta
No 58
August 2003
AUTHORS OF PR TRIUMPHS
The election is a war. Every party needs PR mercenaries
ARRANGEMENT OF PR FORCES ON THE EVE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
Author: Irina Gordienko
Source: Novaya Gazeta, No 58, August, 2003, p. 8
WHAT PR MERCENARIES WILL PROMOTE WHOSE INTERESTS...
UNITED RUSSIA
Gleb Pavlovsky with his Effective Politics Foundation brought the
Unity to success in the past election.
Four years ago Pavlovsky chose the tactic of "names" and had
charismatic Shoigu, Karelin, Gurov made Unity leaders. His methods
this time are quite predictable.
Scandals and manipulations with the party and its composition are
a vivid example. Pavlovsky makes an emphasis on holding offices in the
party and state service (ministers Gryzlov and Shoigu are leaders of
the party), attraction of new and new VIPs (advances are made to
Deputy Premier Boris Aleshin), and dependance on the powerful
administrative resource (that means Deputy Director of the
Presidential Administration Vladislav Surkov).
There are the rumors that the services of Eldar Yanbukhtin, ex- strategist of
the Union of Right Forces, and Ya PR corporation will be
enlisted.
COMMUNIST PARTY
The CPRF set up information and technology center under Ilya
Ponomarev and Yaroslav Grekov eighteen months ago.
Ponomarev is an ex-manager of YUKOS. He was in charge of
computerization of all structures of the holding and headed Sibintek,
a subsidiary. All of a sudden Ponomarev joined the Communist Party.
Grekov is the founding father and mastermind behind Ricn.ru and
Cremlin.ru, known as the yellowest observer in Runet. He specializes
in scandals and smearing materials but even his enemies do not
question Grekov's professionalism.
Monolithic nature is the main "red" PR trick. Appearance of a new
left force capable of disorienting the voter is communists' worst
nightmare. Sergei Glaziev's bloc may pose such a threat to the
Communist Party in this election.
GLAZIEV'S BLOC
Sergei Glaziev is a debutante as head of his own electoral
structure. Not a communist officially, he was in the communist faction
of the Duma. Glaziev is known, justly or not, as a civilized and well- educated
left politician.
Glaziev himself does not know yet whether to run for the Duma
independently or with communists but he does have a political
technologist of his own. He is ORT Deputy General Director Marat
Gelman.
Once a scandalous artist, Gelman became a political technologist
in the middle of the 1990's when he joined Pavlovsky. Gelman remained
a trouble-maker. His past in the new capacity includes the campaign of
the Congress of Russian Communities, work in Boris Yeltsin's electoral
headquarters in 1996, work in Sergei Kirienko's headquarters when
Kirienko ran for the mayor of Moscow, and work against rivals of
Anatoly Chubais' team.
Siding up with Glaziev, Gelman expected that playing solo,
Glaziev will take only 2-3% votes from the Communist Party but may
seriously damage the United Russia and Yabloko. Should Glaziev side up
with Zyuganov, it may bring the latter between 7% and 10%.
All these calculations went down the drain because of Zyuganov.
There are the rumors that Zyuganov promised Glaziev the post of
chairman in the next Duma in return for loyalty.
UNION OF RIGHT FORCES
PR campaigns of the Union of Right Forces have always been
perfect. Unfortunately, the party has problems with personnel.
Yanbukhtin quit the Union of Right Forces this spring. there are
the rumors that he was forced to quit because of Marina Litvinovich,
Runet prima donna and head of the Internet department of the Effective
Politics Foundation who was predicted to become the senior political
technologist of the party.
Something went wrong for Litvinovich, and the position of senior
political technologist is Alfred Kokh. Once a deputy premier and
Gazprom-Media general director, he is a respectable businessman
nowadays.
Constructive criticism is the bait luring voters. Outlining the
problem, the Union of Right Forces "emphasizes it and suggests a
solution". Transfer to a professional army is a perfect choice. The
problem is recognized as pressing for a great deal of Russians
regardless of their political preferences.
Should something go wrong, the last link of the Chubais - Kokh
link may emerge into the spotlight. He is Leonid Gozman, the man who
led the Union of Right Forces to success four years ago.
YABLOKO
This party uses Leonid Nevzlin as its major PR specialist.
Ex-director of public relations of MENATEP, YUKOS vice president,
ITAR-TASS senior deputy general director, and acting president of the
Russian Jewish Congress, Nevzlin is a specialist in business PR. The
Yabloko is his first political attempt. Hence the satellites revolving
around his structures. One of them is Sergei Zverev, president of the
Company of PR Development, former president Gazprom-Media CEO and MOST
Group president.
There is also Leonid Levin with his Tainy Sovetnik PR agency.
Yabloko PR methods resemble the ones used by the Union of Right
Forces. On the other hand, PR department of the Union of Right Forces
is rougher. It is hardly surprising since the Union of Right Forces
all but split from the Yabloko once. The two structures even made a
halfhearted attempt to merge once but it failed. They are rivals now.
The Yabloko makes an emphasis on criticism of reforms in the
living and communal sphere, ecological situation, and advances
individual rights above those of the state.
LDPR
Liberal democrats' public relations are handled by Yelena
Sorokina with her Obratnaya Svyaz agency, but the party itself is
essentially a PR structure.
Political technologists who worked with Vladimir Zhirinovsky in
the past are convinced that giving him advice is a waste of time.
Zhirinovsky is his own best promoter.
PEOPLE'S PARTY
The party cherished the idea of unification with the United
Russia once but Gennadi Raikov was told that it was okay to launch his
own parliamentary campaign.
Interests of the People's Party will be promoted by Igor Bunin's
Center of Political Technologies, one of the five best PR agencies in
Russia.
the idea to run for seats on the Duma independently of the United
Russia may have been Bunin's. Raikov and Co cannot benefit the United
Russia by joining it for the election. On the other hand, the People's
Party playing solo may get some votes from the right nationalist wing
of the communist electorate.
PARTY OF REVIVAL
Gennadi Seleznev's recent statement that the Party of Revival was
not going to make alliances with anybody is an indication of his
personal ambitions.
Duma chairman, Seleznev chose Publicity PR agency specializing in
"positive repute" (this the term used in its charter). Its president
and founder Gai Khanov (ex-director and author of the TV-6 channel
concept) sits on the scientific-methodic council of the Central
Election Commission.
PARTY OF LIFE
It will be promoted by Nikkolo M headed by Igor Mintusov.
In 1995, Nikkolo M and Sitnikov's Image-Contact handled the
campaign of the Our Home is Russia, Viktor Chernomyrdin's structure
that won the election.
There are the rumors that Sergei Mironov will also enlist the
services of Aleksei Koshmarov, the technologist who first conceived
the idea of doubles. Koshmarov is known as an infant terrible and PR- saboteur.
His involvement and interaction with respectable Nikkolo M
promises a quaint campaign.
***
How much will PR mercenaries cost political parties? Every agency
has its own price, but "craziness" of clients plays its part too. A
prominent political technologist who asked that he not be identified
told this correspondent that "where $300,000 is to be demanded from
some political party, it won't hurt to demand $500,000 from the United
Russia."
Analytic services cost between $20,000 and $30,000, consulting
between $100,000 and $300,000.
Prices are different for single-mandate districts. A district is
estimated at $1 million, but such districts are usually handled by
mavericks and loners.
(Translated by A. Ignatkin)
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