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By Russell Working and Nonna Chernyakova
Ousted Mayor Viktor Cherepkov and a bloc of candidates loyal to him swept into office in City Duma elections, guaranteeing the man fired last month by President Boris Yeltsin a power base in local politics. Preliminary results from Sunday's elections showed his United City bloc won in all but two of the 16 districts where the turnout had reached the necessary 25 percent. One other race was too close to call, while in the remaining five districts the turnout fell short and new elections will have to be held. The vote was seen as a rebuke to Primorye region Governor Yevgeny Nazdratenko, an authoritarian leader many voters accuse of engineering the often-erratic Cherepkov's dismissal Dec. 11. Both sides, however, alleged that there were attempts to rig or disrupt the voting, raising the possibility that court challenges could invalidate the elections or delay the formation of the first post-Soviet city council. The past 13 elections in Vladivostok were annulled either because turnout was below 25 percent or because of charges of serious violations. The Duma's first task will be to draw up a city charter and decide how the mayor will be elected or appointed. Mayoral elections also had been planned for Sunday, but were postponed last week when a court ruled that a Duma must be elected first to pass a charter. Cherepkov said the new Duma was likely to approve a charter providing for the popular election of Vladivostok's mayor. "If the Duma will be like we see it, that is consisting of sober-minded citizens of Vladivostok and not simply of representatives of different clans and mafia structures, the Duma must arrive at the decision that the people should elect the Duma and the deputies and the mayor, and not the 22 people [on the Duma] who will only choose someone who suits them," Cherepkov said Monday in televised remarks. Cherepkov also was a candidate in the mayor's race. A mayoral election had already been held in September, but at the last minute the local election committee barred Cherepkov from the ballot. The election was declared invalid after most voters cast ballots for "none of the above." Despite a crowded field of 149 candidates, the pro-Cherepkov candidates caught the public's attention Sunday. Cherepkov himself won 52 percent of the vote, drawing 3,684 votes, while his nearest rival, Yury Sharapov, won 2,348, election officials said. Many ordinary Cherepkov supporters leaving the polls were eager to show their support. "I and all my family, we all voted for Cherepkov," said Aleksandr Kupentsov, a 36-year-old driver. "Thanks to Cherepkov, we have two bridges now, and he raised the money for pensioners. Nazdratenko and [First Vice Governor Konstantin] Tolstoshein - we call them 'Nazdrashein - they just try to bankrupt companies and buy them cheap." "We have won overwhelmingly, despite the enormous efforts of our opponents," said Sergei Markelov, a Cherepkov aide and former deputy mayor. Cherepkov and Nazdratenko have been foes for years, turning public life into a squabbling kindergarten that has dragged down the quality of life in a region notorious for power outages, water shortages and unheated apartment buildings. Cherepkov's supporters accused acting Mayor Yury Kopylov, a Nazdratenko ally the governor appointed after Cherepkov's dismissal, of trying to get Sunday's vote invalidated. Konstantin Radchuk, a city election committee member from Cherepkov's party, said Kopylov sent supporters to stuff obviously fake ballots into election boxes in precincts where Cherepkov allies were running, in an attempt to get those races disqualified. In one precinct, vandals jammed a time-delayed incendiary device into one of the ballot boxes, igniting the contents, Radchuk said. When Radchuk tried to leave City Hall to deliver ballots to a polling station that had run out, he said police guarding the building refused to let him leave. He said the police told him the mayor had ordered them not to let him leave the building. Kopylov's office refused to comment on these charges Monday evening. But in a prepared statement, he said election violations might force some races into court. "In a few polling stations, serious infringements of the law were registered, and the voting results might be disrupted in court," the statement said. Among voters, many celebrated the apparent victory for the ousted mayor with a seemingly infinite number of political lives. But others, cognizant of the city's endless round of problems under Cherepkov, despaired at his show of popularity. "My first emotional reaction is deep pessimism," said Natalya Menshenina, director of the Far Eastern Institute of Political Studies. "I know that this is the beginning of a new chain of major conflicts." Despite the confusion and the victory of his foes, the acting mayor made the best of the results. "The majority of the elected deputies are people with common sense, and the city's executive government will be cooperating with them constructively," Kopylov said in a statement. "Now we have to put all ambitions aside and start working for all Vladivostokians." Final results won't be available until later this week, but it was apparent that Captain Grigory Pasko, a navy journalist facing high-treason charges after exposing nuclear waste dumping by the Pacific Fleet, had lost in his election run from his jail cell. City election committee member Igor Sukhorukov - who was watching the results come in Sunday night in the city administration building with a group of observers over a meal of kimchi, sausage and pickles - said the successful election was a reason for cheer. "There were no bombs, and no fights," he joked. "We expected a far lower turnout. You know the situation here. People might have spit on it and not gone out to vote."
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