CEC approves list of Putin’s electioneering agents.

Itar-Tass — The Central Election Commission approved the list of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s electioneering agents in the upcoming presidential election slated for March 2012.
There are 499 names in the list, including prominent politicians, mass media people, art workers, athletes, teachers, medics, heads of public organisations and pensioners.
The list includes the heads of leading museums: Irina Antonova of the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, Mikhail Piotrovsky of the Hermitage, and Irina Lebedeva of the Tretyakov Gallery, as well as the heads of regional museums as well.
Many electioneering agents work in the film industry and theatres: directors Oleg Tabakov, Nikita Mikhalkov, Karen Shakhnazarov, Vladimir Khotinenko, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Alexander Kalyagin, Boris Eifman, Nikolai Slichenko, and Yuri Solomin, as well as actors Larisa Luzhina, Lidia Velezheva, Alexander Pankratov-Chyorny, Sergei Selin, and others.
Igor Nutman, Yuri Temirkanov, Anna Netrebko, Yuri Bashmet, Pavel Kogan and others will representative the “musical block”.
The list includes many mass media heads: Pavel Gusev of Moskovsky Komsomolets, Nikolai Zyatkov of Argumenty I Fakty, Valery Fadeyev of Expert magazine, and Boris Petrov, head of the Itar-Tass regional office in St. Petersburg.
Many renowned athletes have been included in the list: Andrei Arshavin, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Alexander Kerzhakov, Yevgeny Plyushchenko and Tatyana Navka, and coaches Tatyana Tarasova, Yelena Chaikovskaya, Tamara Moskvina, and others.
Putin’s electioneering agents also include former Tatarstan’s President Mintimer Shaimiyev, Moscow State University Rector Viktor Sadovnichy, poet Fazu Aliyeva, Academician Yevgeny Velikhov, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena, political scientist Dmitry Orlov, fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin, TV host Leonid Yakubovich, and restaurateur Arkady Novikov.
The heads of public organisations – Mikhail Shmakov, head of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions, Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, and others – are on the list as well.
The list is the “first one presented by presidential candidate Vladimir Putin”. Law allows him to register 600 electioneering agents.
Under law, electioneering agents are allowed to campaign in favour of their candidate and even take part in debates. The law also allows a candidate to recall his electioneering agents and they can give up their function themselves.