Translated material
Stop lawsuit
The Supreme Court confirmed the results of the State Duma elections
The Supreme Court yesterday refused to satisfy the claim of Russian communists who tried to challenge the results of the parliamentary elections on December 2, 2007. No one doubted this outcome of the process, and yet the Reds had already announced their intention to protest the decision in various instances. “It is possible that we will file a cassation appeal with the Presidium of the Supreme Court,” Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov warned his opponents. And the head of the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Vadim Solovyov, threatens to go to the European Court.However, this is unlikely to scare the Russian authorities: in Strasbourg, unaddressed communist complaints about violations committed back in the 2003 parliamentary campaign are still gathering dust in Strasbourg.
During the process that ended yesterday, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation put forward an impressive list of claims to the Central Election Commission. In particular, the oppositionists were dissatisfied with the uneven, in their opinion, coverage of the election campaign of various parties in the media and especially on television, as well as the reluctance of the Central Election Commission to respond to complaints and the change in the form of the ballot during voting.
To prove their case, the communists were going to bring 400 witnesses into the hall. However, the court agreed to hear only one single eyewitness - member of the Central Election Commission Yevgeny Kolyushin, a non-party communist, who last December wrote a note with a “dissenting opinion” about the past election campaign. At the same time, the lawyers of the Communist Party wanted to call the leaders of United Russia - State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin - to testify. The court did not support this idea. Also rejected was a request to require television companies to provide videocassettes and printouts of information and analytical programs that aired last fall. Thus, it was proposed to prove the “information bias” in the coverage of the election campaign, which played into the hands of the party in power.
True, the topic of “distortion” did receive some development. “The court examined our timing for five days - November 3, 4, 5, 7 and 22,” Vadim Solovyov, head of the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. - Nobody disputed these data. But the Central Election Commission said that supposedly analytical and opinionated programs do not fall under the requirements of the law on ensuring equality.” “But CEC member Maya Grishina herself published a brochure, which clearly states that all programs, including humorous ones, fall under this requirement!” - the deputy is indignant.
A weighty argument in the fight to cancel the election results should also have been copies of the protocols of precinct election commissions collected by Communist Party observers during the vote count. The Reds claimed that the data entered into the GAS “Elections” system in a number of cases differed significantly from the numbers recorded in the copies. Due to improper registration, only a little more than 200 copies reached the court, and at least 13 of them, received in Chelyabinsk, turned out to be obvious fakes. The Central Election Commission accuses the communists of the forgery, and they, in turn, have already contacted the Prosecutor General's Office with a demand to find out the origin of the linden tree. “Yesterday I received an interim letter signed by Deputy Prosecutor General Ms. Kopteva, which said that the deadline for checking this case has been extended,” Vadim Solovyov told Vremya Novostey.
The reasoning for the court decision is expected to be ready next week. As Evgeny Kolyushin noted in an interview with Vremya Novostei (see issue dated July 16) , the court can highlight violations on the part of the Central Election Commission without canceling the election results. “The court could have issued a special ruling to the Central Election Commission, but did not do so,” explained Vadim Solovyov. “It is possible that violations will be mentioned in the motivational part, but I do not rule out that the descriptive part will be very harsh in terms of assessments - in the sense that there were no violations at all.”
The head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, was restrainedly happy about the decision of the Supreme Court, saying that the complaints of the communists “did not and could not receive confirmation.” “There is nothing to suggest that the country’s electoral system is not one of the best structures in the Russian Federation and in Europe,” declared the winner. In an effort to be objective, he also announced for the first time statistics on bringing violators of electoral law to justice. Administrative penalties were imposed on 35 members of election commissions at all levels, but there was only one criminal charge. “Unfortunately, this woman is insane and was sent for compulsory treatment,” Mr. Churov explained.
While the parties exchange pleasantries, analysts are trying to find the goal that the communists were pursuing by filing a patently failed lawsuit. “In my opinion, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is trying to play on the contradictions that lie in the relations between the new President Dmitry Medvedev and the former head of state Vladimir Putin, as well as their teams,” Tatyana Stanovaya, head of the analytical department of the Center for Political Technologies, expressed this opinion to the Vremya Novostey correspondent. - Medvedev differs quite seriously in his style and rhetoric from Putin, although in terms of content he fully maintains continuity. But even the stylistic difference provides a fairly wide field for play.” The expert sees signs of the Reds’ attack on the Prime Minister, in particular, in persistent attempts to summon him to court and bring him to justice. At the same time, Ms. Stanovaya notes, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation “reacts positively” to the rhetoric of Dmitry Medvedev. “Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is making a unique selling proposition: we are ready to build relations with you differently than with Putin,” Ms. Stanovaya believes.
Along the way, according to the political scientist, the communists are trying to stake out a position for themselves as the only systemic left opposition, which A Just Russia, led by Sergei Mironov, has recently been actively laying claim to. In this regard, the message of the Communist Party is addressed not only to the current president, but also to other political “investors” who have not yet decided who to bet on in the emerging system of tandemocracy.