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| 15 января, 2013 | | | Читать на сайте издания |
Kostin foundation to carry out an appraisal of political consultants before elections
'Izvestia' daily publication
By Olga Zhermeleva and Vladimir Dergachev
The Foundation for the Development of Civil Society is creating an ‘Atlas of political consultants' before the Single day of voting on 8th September. The head of the Foundation, Konstantin Kostin, told Izvestia that this document will be a sort of handbook – a detailed list of reputable political consultants – and will be released in June of this year. It will be composed only of those political consultants who have been successful over the past ten years in election campaigns. This document will help to reduce the number of pseudo political consultants in the run-up to the Single woting day on 8th September.
‘Firstly, we will only include those who have shown themselves to be successful and competent over the past decade. Secondly we will define the real meaning of polittekhnolog – political consultant - technologist. It is a profoundly Russian word and as such not really translatable. They describe themselves as people who have many different tasks in elections’ says Kostin.
In the near future the Foundation will hold discussions with market participants and experts. He is also prepared to invite political scientists to contribute to the Atlas.
At present, he says, the market for political consultants is looks like a pyramid: at the top are those who lead the campaigns and bring together specialists from other areas; in the middle are the political advisers who engage in certain important fragments of the campaign; and at the bottom are the copywriters – experts in organising field work, meetings with voters etc. As a rule, they are brought in only for the period of elections themselves.
The political consultants themselves view the creation of a handbook like this as important. As Leonid Polyakov, head of the Department of Political Science at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow explains: ‘With the introduction of direct elections and the new, simpler registration process for parties, we are going to see a boom in the number of charlatans in this field. I envisage that demand for this handbook will be greatest among the new political players.’
As Mikhail Vinogradov, President of the Petersburg Politics Foundation says, there are only a few dozen true political consultants organisations in the country today. They can be divided into three categories: large agencies with great experience (there are not many of these); companies who employ well known figures - and thirdly, small, regional teams (of which we have very little information) which have been formed recently and which are the most numerous.
After the abolition of elections of Governors, a number of political consultants turned to corporate public relations, so - according to Vinogradov - several thousand people could expect to be included in the ‘Atlas of political consultants.’
However, Sergei Markov, a political scientist and member of the Public Chamber as well as being assistant professor of history and politics at the Moscow State University, said the process of drawing up the ‘Atlas’ could result in a number of complaints within the political science business community.
‘It appears that Kostin’s Foundation is compiling a sort of business-directory recommending those who are close to the administration of the president’ says Markov. ‘So many players on the market will want to be included. This is not only a question of image: we are talking a lot of money here, money which is tied up in this sphere. Therefore there will be a scramble to make the list’
Vinogradov believes: ‘This ‘Atlas’ could become a handbook for those wanting to employ the service of political scientists, although previous, similar lists (for example by the Electoral Association of Political Scientists isbass.ru) has not, admittedly had much resonance with prospective employers’. Vinogradov also points out that working as a political consultant requires no qualifications or certification.
