№ 4 - 2000
Vishn'evsky B.L.
The Petersburg Electoral “Marathon” and Its Lessons

The author, Political Programs Director, EPIcenter-SPb (Economic and Political Studies Foundation, St. Petersburg),details the peripeteias of the campaign that preceded the St. Petersburg gubernatorial elections. The campaign was carried on in two stages: the first was the stage of embittered strife for changing the date of the elections; during the second stage, candidates were being put forward to run for governor of the «Northern Capital».The attempts of the Centre to influence the outcome of the Petersburg elections - which, in the author’s opinion, underlay the pre-election collision - turned out a failure. Moscow’s inability, as shown by the Petersburg electoral «Marathon», to bring to bear its influence upon the course of a regional election campaign, may, from the author’s point of view, serve as quite a topical lesson for the heads of other subjects of Russian Federation on the threshold of the coming gubernatorial elections.