The order of the counting

For which Beglov awarded the chairman of the St. Petersburg Horizburkom Minenko

The chairman of the St. Petersburg Horizburg Viktor Minenko still left his post. He submitted the corresponding statement the day after he was solemnly awarded the Order of Honor.

Some perceived this as a strengthening of Minenko’s positions against the backdrop of regular claims by the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova and her requirements for members of the GIK (including the chairman) to resolve powers.

Others, on the contrary, remembered the old tradition - to reward before resignation. And they were right.

That's just waiting for changes - and honest elections in St. Petersburg - after this resignation is not at all. “Put at least the most ideal chairman, little will change. It is necessary to change the nature of the work of the commission and its composition. ” This is not I said, but Ella Pamfilova herself. True, a year ago. But still relevant.

Viktor Minenko - a former soldier, and then a federal inspector - worked as head of the GIK for two years.

Half of this period of it, like the entire St. Petersburg election commission, mercilessly criticized Ella Pamfilova. But everything was limited to words.

The Gorizbirk with widely closed eyes watched as in the Governor's elections of 2019 municipal deputies were sent in construction to subscribe to the governors selected by Smolny, preventing the others from passing the “municipal filter”. And the CEC only shook his hands.

The Gorizbirk (with rare exceptions) did not respond when elections to municipal councils were secretly appointed in the municipal elections of the same year, and candidates could not submit documents for registration. But the CEC only threatened with a finger - nothing more.

The Gorizbirk, receiving complaints from the candidates who were denied on absurd grounds, often refused to register them with his decision, returning the “cases” to the municipal commissions that refused again. But the CEC behaved exactly the same.

The Gorizbirk, seeing the obvious fraud (for example, replacing the election documents of candidates and parties) with the commissions of the election documents, sided with the commissions, not candidates. But the CEC also took the same side.

The Gorizbirk did not respond to frank falsifications when voting in the municipal elections - when the ballots were frankly replaced or protocols were faked (the courts to cancel these falsifications are still underway). But the CEC behaved in the same way.

The Gorizbirk, when a vote was carried out on amendments to the Constitution, ignored the obvious evidence of the frank coercion of state employees to early voting, calling this recommendations. And Ella Pamfilova, who demanded to send her these evidence and promised strict punishment guilty, having received documents (personally sent), transported them to Smolny. Which, of course, did not find any violations at home.

Finally, the Gorizbirk “did not notice” any violations during a “weekly” vote, when the ballots were collected in the yards, when, contrary to the whole picture of a very little interest in voting, they reported a significant turnout, and urns with unanimous support of amendments, which did not fit into the laws of statistics, brought from the “home -made voting”. However, the CEC then believed that everything was going fine ...

Against this background, from time to time, the arising thunder and lightning addressed to the horiz being and its chairman looked like purely ritual body movements.

Or as a way for the CEC, take criticism from yourself, shifting it to a horiz being. And to take the discussion away from questions on the merits - for example, about why the CEC himself (it is he who represents the candidacy of the chairman of the GIK) again chooses exclusively those characters who are firmly connected with the executive branch?

One is the “man” of one governor, the other - the third (Minenko himself) worked in subordination to Alexander Beglov, when he was not yet a governor.

Are there really no alternative to the “Smolninsky” candidates for the chairmen with all the wealth of choice?

“Over the eight years of my work in Gorizbirkom, the third chairman is already giving up the early resignation,” says Olga Pokrovskaya, a member of the GIK from Yabloko, one of the few who opposed the general line and defended the rights of candidates. -I don’t have any special reason to believe that the work of the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission will fundamentally change after the appointment of the fourth. The stylistics of relations within the commission may change, but not the principles of the work of the horizificity as an organ. In fact, the system of election commissions in Russia is an important component of the vertical of power, one of its supports. According to the law, election commissions of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are half formed by governors, half - regional parliaments. That is, the same bodies that are then elected under the supervision of the same commissions. Therefore, the authorities are trying in advance to choose the composition of the commissions as more of its trusted people. For reference: out of the 14 members of the horizificial committee, six were appointed according to the proposals of parliamentary parties (they cannot be appointed), and out of the other eight -seven in different years they worked in the executive authorities ... "

A month and a half ago, another “thunder” struck: Ella Pamfilova said that GIK could not cope with work and appoints exactly those who were accused of involvement in the elections violations in the territorial commissions. And she offered members to resign GIK. They responded with a confident refusal.

And on November 11, Viktor Minenko, under the stormy applause of the heads of Tikov (they participated in the video in the video), handed the Order of Honor. The governor of Beglov was presented on behalf of President Putin. For "great merits to the state and many years of fruitful activity."

Ella Alexandrovna was indignant: “This cannot be! I can't believe it! The CEC submits a request for awarding the most worthy! And Minenko was not among them! "

However, the governor could also imagine Minenko to the order - which he apparently did.

True, they immediately spoke that, having awarded Minenko, he would still be removed from his post. And they began to call even possible successors - of course, from among the subordinates of Beglov. And the next day, a resignation statement appeared.

And then - the governor’s decision on the dismissal of Minenko from the post of member of the GIK (appointed by the Governor) “on the Personal Application”.

This automatically stops the powers of Minenko as the head of the GIK.

Now the CEC must submit to his appointment - a member of the GIK, and then the chairman - a new candidate.

It is not worthwhile to nourish illusions: the one who will be configured for a fundamentally different policy will not be appointed (and certainly not agreed with the governor - Beglov has never given reason to suspect himself of a tendency to honest elections).

Yes, and the composition of the GIK remains the same: only two out of 14 (Pokrovskaya and member of the Socialist Revolutionary Commission from the Socialist Revolutionaries Ekaterina Fesik) are able to argue with the “general line”.

And most importantly, the city authorities do not have installations on honest elections.

As, however, in federal ones.

So to wait in the St. Petersburg Horizburkom - as in the St. Petersburg elections - there are decisively no reason.

Well, Viktor Minenko is already being able to return to the presidential envoy.

And the malicious journalist Gleb Stashkov (historian by education) ironizes that in the Russian Empire, where the Order was usually given before resignation, as a rule, they also gave the next rank. Or title. And a village with a couple of hundred souls.

But before this followed by historical memory and national traditions, it seems, it has not yet reached.