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Verkiezingskoorts: de krantenkoppen

Zondag kiest Rusland een nieuwe president. In het heetst van de strijd –en speciaal voor MO*- volgen de jonge Russische journalistes Maria Shirobokova en Ksenia Natorina een week lang de politieke berichtgeving in de belangrijkste Russische media.

Een overzicht van de krantenkoppen van maandag 25 februari:

Maria Shirobokova en Ksenia Natorina . 25 februari 2008

Both Kommersant and Vedomosti bring up the fight between two presidential candidates. After a televised election debate on the channel Zvezdan, Vladimir Zhirinovsky (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) and a representative of Andrey Bogdanov (Democratic Party) got involved in a physical fight. After the incident, Bogdanov argued that Zhirinovsky should be dismissed from the presidential election. The Central Election Commission however announced that the candidature of Zhirinovsky would not be withdrawn.
The Moskowskie Novosti focuses on another presidential candidate, Communist leader Gennadi Zuganov, and his strategy to reach Russia’s young electorate. Zuganov, who already took part in two previous presidential elections, sees the internet as a means to reach young voters. At the last party congress, Zuganov tried to look modern and progressive.
The Gazeta notices that the Liberal Democrats of Zhirinovsky withdrew their complaint over irregular distribution of air time between the presidential candidates. The complaint had been submitted to the Central Elections Commision earlier this week. The joint complaint letter had been signed by 31 deputies from two Duma factions, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the Communist Party. The complaint is based on a survey conducted by the Political Culture Study Center. According to the survey news programs of channel One, Russia and TV-center are flooded with information about Kremlin’s favorite Dmitry Medvedev.
The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reports on the informal summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) that took place in Moscow last weekend. It was the last informal CIS-summit attended by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Also Dmitry Medvedev was present. His participation in the summit can be seen as an introduction to the presidents of the CIS-countries. The Nezavisimaya points out that according to the latest polls, Medvedev can count with 64 procent of the Russian votes. Analysts are shocked by the stability of the high rating.