AT RUSSIA’S EDGE….

Voter fatigue in Vladivostok is excusable. In the eighteenth round of local elections, low turnout invalidated the results in the balloting for members of the city council. In the mayoral race, however, the elections commission (which had nullified two elections in 1999) declared incumbent Yuri Kopylov the winner over former Mayor Viktor Cherepkov. Vladivostok, the capital of the Maritime Territory on the Sea of Japan, is divided politically into supporters and opponents of the region’s erratic and corrupt governor, Yevgeny Nazdratenko. Kopylov is a supporter, and Cherepkov an opponent. Cherepkov vowed to contest the outcome, but pro-Nazdratenko forces control the elections commission. The city has not had both a mayor and a council at the same time since 1993.