When the young managing director of Moscow's luxurious Radisson-Slavyanskaya Hotel called a press conference this week, journalists turned up in large numbers. They expected the hotelier, a Chechen called Mr Umar Dzhabrailov, to talk about why the US businessman Mr Paul Tatum met his death in a hail of machine-gun bullets at the Kievskaya metro station on November 6th, 1996.
Instead Mr Dzhabrailov stunned the press corps by announcing that God had appeared to him and asked him to save Russia. For this reason, he said, he was putting his name forward as a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation in next June's elections. As a presidential candidate he will, under Russian law, be immune from prosecution.
But Mr Dzhabrailov is more likely to have an effect on the parliamentary elections which take place on December 19th, and the linking of his name with Fatherland-All Russia (OVR) has not helped that party's leaders - Moscow's mayor, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, and the former prime minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov.
Pro-government TV stations - and particularly a talk show run by Mr Sergei Dorenko - have accused OVR of involvement in Mr Tatum's murder.
Many observers here believe the main link to be Mr Dzhabrailov, who has denied all involvement in the murder of Mr Tatum. The American had been claiming part ownership of the Radisson when he met his death. Mr Dzhabrailov's US visa was revoked by Washington shortly after the killing.
These allegations on national television, though not a shred of evidence has been offered, have cost OVR a great deal of public support, and from being the unbeatable "dream team" it has fallen into third place behind the Communists and the pro-Yeltsin Unity Party, led by the Minister for Emergency Situations, Mr Sergei Shoigu.
As Russia is having quite a few emergency situations these days, hardly a day goes by without Mr Shoigu getting an airing on national TV. He is a good speaker, looks honest and straightforward, just like the sort of grandson every Russian babushka would like to have, and he puts across the strong impression that he is doing his best. Consequently OVR, now in trouble in the opinion polls, has come up with what it believes to be a political master-stroke in the form of a proposed alliance with the Communists. The sums add up in that the Communists' 21 per cent in the polls and OVR's 11 per cent would put Mr Shoigu's party's 14 per cent in the shade.
But come the presidential elections in June, for which the Prime Minister, Mr Vladimir Putin, is now the strongest contender, OVR will need to have wiped every single bit of Bolshevik red from its banner. Russian voters, while having a strong tolerance for Communists in parliament, will have very little to do with them when the presidency is at stake. OVR's alliance with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a high-risk move which promises short-term gain and long-term difficulties.
The right-winger Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his supporters had some trouble with the electoral authorities. First of all his oddly-named Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) was not permitted to register on a technicality. He then managed to register as Zhirinovsky's Block. Then the authorities decided to register LDPR after all and now Mr Zhirinovsky has two parties.
AFP adds: This month's election for Russia's State Duma stands a high chance of being annulled due to vague and inconsistent election laws, a close associate of Mr Yeltsin has warned. "There is an enormous potential that these elections will be declared invalid," said Mr Boris Berezovsky. "Without doubt someone, probably one of the losers, will contest the vote results and have a very substantial legal basis for doing so."
