HAS ROMANIAS PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF PRODUCED FIRST COHABITATION SCENARIO?
Communist Party leader Gennadii Zyuganov on 10 December testified before the Supreme Court in the hearing of a case filed by the Communist Party and Yabloko seeking to overturn the results of the December 2003 State Duma elections, “Kommersant-Daily” reported on 11 December. Zyuganov testified about the media coverage of his party’s campaign and said that the elections were the “dirtiest and most base” in Russia’s post-Soviet history, worse even than the 1996 presidential election. He said that state media extensively reported on a book that alleged that the Communist Party aided Chechen “terrorists” without giving the party any chance to refute the allegations. State television also allegedly carried reports that Zyuganov owns a timber factory in Jordan and a hotel in Cuba. Zyuganov also testified that agents working for deputy presidential administration head Vladislav Surkov purchased a house in Orel Oblast that Zyuganov built together with his father and created a “so-called museum
