RUSSIA : Analyst’s Study Casts Doubts on Vote Results

Just when President Boris N. Yeltsin thought it was safe . . . just when it looked like Russia’s spasm-racked political system might finally be on the road to stability . . . along came Alexander Sobyanin.

Sobyanin, a bespectacled physicist-turned-political scientist, does not look like the kind of man to shatter parliaments and constitutions with a single blow.

But the numbers he crunches pack such a charge that they threaten Russia’s whole new political system by casting doubt on its foundation--the Dec. 12 balloting that approved the Russian Constitution and put the current Parliament in place.

His computations indicate massive fraud in the critical vote.

“These figures are political dynamite,” the respected daily Izvestia said.

This week, the Russian Duma, the lower house of Parliament, ordered its Credentials Commission to look into Sobyanin’s allegations. The commission chairman brushed off a proposal for a two-week deadline on a commission report, but sooner or later the truth will emerge.

And if Sobyanin is right, it is a truth that nobody particularly wants to hear.

The trouble began when Sobyanin’s group of Kremlin-appointed sociologists began to analyze the Dec. 12 results, using samples and mathematical principles to dissect overall results. His team has worked over results of every Russian election since 1989.

This time around, charges of widespread cheating abounded after the election, mainly from Russia’s Choice, the pro-Yeltsin party that gained only an embarrassing 15% of the vote compared to the whopping 23% that went to neo-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his party.

The falsification charges gained credence after local counters took more than two days to send their tallies to Moscow, with many results coming in much later. The longer the delay, election monitors know, the more chances for fiddling with the numbers.

On May 4, Sobyanin dropped his bombshell. Quoted in an Izvestia article, he alleged that about 9 million votes out of an electorate of 106 million had been falsified, apparently mainly by regional leaders intent on their own election. He identified three types of election fraud--padded voter lists, ballot-stuffing after the fact and official coercion of voters.

He estimated that the fraud had largely worked against reformers and in favor of Zhirinovsky and also the Communist Party. That calculation, with the prospect that it could be corrected and reformers given more seats, was sure to please Yeltsin.

But any pleasure was outweighed by horror at the flip side of Sobyanin’s allegations--that the faked ballots had so plumped up the total voter participation that it had passed the 50% mark needed to make the referendum on the constitution valid. In fact, Sobyanin believes, about 46% of the population voted--which means the new charter never really passed.

The Russian president had thrown every ounce of his political weight behind the constitution, touting it as the only way to avoid the kind of political bloodshed that Moscow suffered last fall when the fight between the president and Parliament climaxed in artillery fire at the White House, the old Parliament building.

Yeltsin’s aides have responded to Sobyanin’s charges with outrage and denial.

Sobyanin himself does not want to see the Constitution invalidated. He believes that if his fraud allegations are proven, Yeltsin can simply hold a nationwide public opinion poll asking people if they believe that the Constitution needs to be voted on once again, and the vast majority will decline.

In any case, Sobyanin believes, his findings are likely to end up as nothing more than a historical footnote because neither the reformers, who want the constitution to remain in force, nor opposition members, who would lose seats, believe a challenge to the election results to be in their interest.

At best, he hopes the ruckus over his findings will lead to a change in the slapdash laws that would allow such rampant abuse.

Sobyanin’s Score Card

Alexander Sobyanin’s group analyzed voting data using samples and mathematical principles to dissect overall results.

Turnout: Official figure: 58 million Sobyanin’s figure: 46 million

% of total population*: Official figure: 54.8 million Sobyanin’s figure: 46.1 million

Other Findings by Sobyanin Total falsified votes: 9 million

3 Types of Fraud 1. Padded voter lists 2. Ballot-stuffing 3. Official coercion of voters

* 50% turnout required for valid election

Source: Times Moscow Bureau