The emergence on the political scene of a movement called
Yabloko without Yavlinsky marked a new stage in the evolution of the conflict
between the two parties. Last week, Leonid Gozman, a member of the RAO
YeES Integrated Energy Systems board and head of the SPS coordinating council,
told journalists that the energy company was suing Sergei
Mitrokhin for damaging the reputation of RAO executives with his remarks
that had led to a drop in company share prices and market value. RAO leadership
suspects that Yabloko is concerned not so much about election campaigning
methods as about the interests of certain commercial structures that are
hoping to buy up RAO YeES shares on the cheap.
With regard to the purported involvement of energo executives, who also
double as SPS leaders, and Alfred Kokh in the action against Yabloko, Gozman
only said that he was not privy to the SPS specific plans so he does not
know whether the action pledged by Kokh in his August 8 interview has gone
ahead, adding that the RAO YeES statute does not envision the use of sleaze
tactics. As for PR companies engaged in the Yabloko without Yavlinsky project,
nothing is known about their contacts with RAO either.
Meanwhile, there seems to be some connection between SPS, RAO and Y
without Y.
The Y without Y group chose to stake out its positions at a news conference
organized by a certain PR company. The latter was not particularly careful
about it, sending to various media outlets a letter that, contrary to
general practice, guaranteed payment for stories on the newly founded
movement and asking to name a journalist who would be assigned to write
a report. The letter contained the address, telephone number, and name
of a manager of the R.I.M. Porter Novelli agency.
The agency is part of one of the major PR conglomerates that are running,
both officially and unofficially, a number of joint projects. In particular
R.I.M. is a co-founder, together with Image-Contact and some other participants,
of So-obschenie magazine, edited by Pyotr Shchedrovitsky. The latter is
known both as an active participant in RAO YeES projects and as an organizer
of the SPS Duma campaign in 1999. He is still one of the main political
advisers to Sergei Kiriyenko. Image-Contact, in addition to participation
in Russia Is Our Home and Medved projects, in 2000, also ran a presidential
campaign for the SPS nominee Konstantin Titov. As for R.I.M. itself, its
head, Igor Pisarsky, took part in the first election campaign of the Russias
Democratic Choice (Chubais-Gaidar) party and then in promoting the Russia
Is Our Home party.
The address given in the letter proved real (true, experts say a senders
e-mail address could be easily forged). R.I.M. Porter Novelli, however,
vehemently denies any involvement in organizing the Y without Y campaign
or sending out any business proposals. Nonetheless, a Y without Y commercial
has already been placed in some St. Petersburg print media outlets. In
particular, just ahead of the movements presentation, and a week afterward,
Smena and Vecherny Peterburg dailies ran the same text signed by the same
person. Furthermore, we have evidence from journalists who called the
agencys telephone number ostensibly to discuss the proposal. According
to Oksana Zaitseva, a Sovremenny Gorozhanin reporter, the conversation
was most business-like. No one denied the ads authorship: They were only
interested in the papers circulation and the cost of ad placement. The
agency refused to place any Y without Y ads in the paper, citing financial
constraints.
All of the above does not of course prove beyond any doubt that the
SPS or RAO YeES masterminded the latest PR campaign against Yabloko. Even
so, if it was not the SPS that commissioned the project but some unknown
force, the latter did everything to implicate the right-wing, thus showing
that Yablokos comments were well-placed.
See also:
the original at:
Moscow News
Yabloko and SPS
|
