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Medvedev Doesn’t Take Money
The cost-is-no-object approach is apparently not the most characteristic feature of this year’s presidential campaign. According to the movement in candidates’ spending, hardly any of them will approach the upper ceiling of costs set forth in the laws.
According to the Central Election Commission, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev generated 190 million rubles by February 19. Same as a fortnight ago (when he had 182.7 million rubles), Medvedev is the richest candidate of all. But his overall spending didn’t exceed 23.370 million rubles, including 15.5 million rubles spent in the past two weeks.
Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov manifested the greatest growth in election money. His balance surged to 153.389 million rubles from 39.3 million rubles posted two weeks ago. Similar to Medvedev, Zyuganov is evidently not in the spending mood – his overall costs didn’t exceed 51 million rubles.
LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is yet the most lavish of all. This candidate spent over 152 million rubles (Zhirinovsky had 160 million rubles on accounts a fortnight ago).
Democratic Party leader Andrei Bogdanov neither spent nor saved in the past two weeks. His accounts stood at 4.85 million rubles vs. 4.8 million rubles two weeks ago; the costs equaled 4.3 million rubles.
This niggardly sentiment of the candidates is easy to explain. The obvious frontrunner Medvedev staked on the presence on federal TV. He also found quite a few local reasons for regional trips, and these moves don’t call for sizeable injection of money. For other candidates, the spending doesn’t make sense - hardly anyone in Russia doubts the outcome of the current race for the country's presidency.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Feb. 20, 2008
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