"It was a drab business. Presidential hopefuls' standbys, for the most part, are growing dim. Even political party leaders nominated their deputies for the race, so we are trying to guess who'll come second. That's entertaining, at least," Alexei Kara-Murza, prominent on the Union of Right Forces, remarked to Novosti after watching televised pre-election debates.
Presidential hopefuls-Sergei Glazyev, Irina Hakamada, Nikolai Kharitonov, Oleg Malyshkin and Sergei Mironov-made as much of the air and campaign funds as their opportunities and imagination allowed.
"It was a sad sight to see," Alexei Khlopov, development manager of the Propaganda Bureau public relations agency, comments the campaign. "It was tedious and utterly unimaginative, with no catchy tricks to attract voters." As hopefuls' promoters say in justification, they prefer profundity to loudness, and are loath to throw mud at their bosses' rivals.
Irina Hakamada, recently at the Union of Right Forces helm, says she is not after presidency, and is making use of her campaign to advertise a new liberal project, tentatively named Free Russia, whose programme she has drafted proceeding from letters and phone calls she received from the public.
Communist hopeful Nikolai Kharitonov thoroughly enjoys free air to which regional television companies have entitled him as parliamentary party nominee. "I had all the time I wanted on provincial channels, and we were using it as best we could. I don't think I am lacking much to win the first round," he boasts.
Sergei Glazyev was too busy to substantiate his programme-he devoted his campaign to squabbles in the Rodina parliamentary group, some of whose MPs came out against his self-nomination.
Oleg Malyshkin, Liberal Democratic candidate, is as pleased as Punch even though Vladimir Zhirinovsky, his party boss of exuberant if scandalous eloquence, was not allowed to replace him on the free air.
Malyshkin is not one for reticence. "There's no job I have not tried. I know all there is to know, and I'll give you everything you want," he said to the nation during final debates on the Russia television channel.
