Tutaev, ninth rally against falsifications

Despite the prohibitions of the United Russia mayor, in Tutaev (Yaroslavl region) last Saturday, April 21, the ninth civil action took place against falsification of the election results for the head of the district, in defense of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to elect and be elected. As one of the organizers of Saturday’s protest, the leader of the Tutaevsky communists Alexey Shepovalov, told us, “we initially planned a rally in the city recreation park on April 21.”

“The decision to hold the event was made by the participants of the All-District Rally on April 8. Within the time limits established by law, on April 11, I, together with 6 other co-organizers, sent a notification to the city administration about the event. But the city administration did not authorize the rally for us, citing the holding according to a previously submitted application at the same time and in the same place for the “Victory” Defense Sports Event. In exchange, we were offered the outskirts of the city - Yubileinaya Square. Whose specific “Victory” is being defended by the head of the urban settlement of Tutaev, Sergei Ershov, a member of the political council of the regional branch of “United Russia”, I think we can guess.”

Thanks to Alexander Vorobyov, deputy of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma, chairman of the Communist Party faction, the action nevertheless took place - and not on the outskirts, as the United Russia mayor wanted, but in the busiest part of the city, in the form of a meeting between a deputy and voters.

According to various estimates, from 300 to 500 Tutaevites gathered for the rally.

Deputy Vorobyov’s meeting with the people was also attended by Andrei Minin, essentially the head of the TMR elected by the people, Alexey Shepovalov and Valery Popov, co-chairs of the Civil Action Headquarters, which organizes Tutaevites to defend constitutional rights. Raisa Biryuchkova, deputy of the district council, Alexey Smirnov, labor veteran, Alexey Krivtsov, correspondent for the Berega newspaper, which fell out of favor with the newly-minted “head”, United Russia member Levashov.

The information about the satisfaction of Andrei Minin's complaint by the Tutaev City Court was received with stormy applause by those gathered. On April 10, the court overturned the decision of the TEC to exclude polling station No. 805, located in Fominsky, from the vote count, declared the recount of votes carried out at nine polling stations in the district illegal, and decided to make appropriate changes to the summary table and the final protocol for the election of the head of the TMR.

Let us recall that before the Tutaevsky election commission made illegal decisions, Andrei Minin was ahead of his United Russia rival by more than 300 votes.

The meeting participants received information about the possible resignation of the governor of the Yaroslavl region Sergei Vakhrukov in the near future. Several federal media outlets reported on the possible resignation of the Yaroslavl governor the other day. Pointing out the reason for the low percentage of trust shown by Yaroslavl residents to the “party in power” in the past federal and municipal elections.

Let us recall that in Tutaev, in two weeks, about 3,500 signatures were collected for the resignation of Vakhrukov, since it was him who was considered by a significant part of Tutaev residents to be responsible for the legal chaos in the elections in the Tuaevsky district. And already on April 13, walkers from Tutaev took 184 sheets with signatures of 3,358 residents to Moscow and handed them over to the presidential administration.

At the same time, the participants of the action came to the general opinion that simply technically replacing Vakhrukov with any other Kremlin protege is unacceptable in the current situation; it is necessary to achieve the election of the governor by the people themselves.

It was also noted that as long as the election commissions include people who have discredited themselves through their involvement in falsifying the voting results, and the prosecutor’s office is doing everything not to notice violations of the law, one can only dream of fair elections, including for the governor. This means that it is necessary to achieve the fulfillment of all demands, including the immediate dismissal from their positions of the chairman of the Yaroslavl regional election commission Alexander Baburkin, the chairman of the TEC of Tutaev and the Tutaevsky district Alexander Bem and the Tutaev interdistrict prosecutor Nikolai Moiseev.

At the end of the event, the meeting participants decided to gather again on May 1 for a civil action in defense of constitutional rights, including the right to vote and be elected.