To the killers of democracy

The new head of the Duma faction proposes imprisonment for 15 years for falsifying election results

Gennady Semigin, having barely assumed the rights of the head of the Duma faction “Rodina” (“Narodnaya Volya” - SEPR - “Patriots of Russia”), made a proposal to legislatively strengthen criminal liability for falsifying the results of elections at all levels, including presidential ones. In his opinion, such crimes should be punishable by imprisonment for a term of 10 to 15 years (the same or even less in Russia that murderers often receive) with confiscation of property. Mr. Semigin promised to submit the bill to the State Duma on January 10, but so far the document is still being examined by the Supreme Court.

Mr. Semigin complains that in Russia, before every election, many political parties try to adopt a memorandum on fair elections. Such agreements are willingly signed, but nevertheless, after each election, revelations are made, official complaints and criminal cases appear. True, until now in the modern history of Russia there have been no cases when plaintiffs were able to convict the authorities of falsifying election results.

Now, according to Articles 141 and 142 of the Criminal Code of Russia, falsification of election results is punishable by a fine ranging from 100 thousand to 300 thousand rubles. or imprisonment for up to four years, depending on the severity of the distortion of voting results. According to Mr. Semigin, these measures are not enough. “We regard these crimes as special, state crimes,” says the leader of Patriots of Russia. He also emphasizes the importance of property confiscation because, “as in the case of terrorism, money is often used to rig elections.”

Chairman of the relevant committee on civil, criminal, arbitration and procedural legislation, deputy of the United Russia faction Pavel Krasheninnikov told Vremya Novostey that he considers such measures excessive. “Of course, it is necessary to punish for falsification of election results. Fines and even imprisonment if crimes are committed on an especially large scale,” said Mr. Krasheninnikov. “But four years is enough.” I believe that the proposal to increase the term of imprisonment to fifteen years does not stand up to criticism. I think that there is no such thing in any country in the world.”

The Central Election Commission refused to comment on Mr. Semigin’s initiative before the bill was officially submitted to the State Duma. But in November 2006, the chairman of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, proposed introducing criminal liability for calls for a boycott of elections. There is experience of punishment for failure to appear at elections in world practice: administrative or criminal liability for failure to appear at elections exists in Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, the Netherlands, and is practiced by some Latin American states. In Australia, a fine of about thirteen US dollars is imposed for failure to vote. In Austria, a person who evades participation in elections is subject to a fine of one thousand shillings. And in Pakistan, those who do not vote are punished with hard labor for up to five years and a fine of five thousand rupees. However, this experience of Russia will clearly not be useful in the near future - Russian parliamentarians recently passed, and the president signed, a law abolishing the minimum turnout threshold for elections. But falsification of voting results in democratic countries is not punished criminally - there simply no one can think of the possibility of such a crime.

So far, Gennady Semigin is full of optimism about his initiative. He called on all political parties to support the position of the “Patriots of Russia”: “We will raise this issue before the State Duma, and then it will become absolutely clear how each deputy or faction feels about the fact that, in fact, today election fraud has become a widespread phenomenon throughout Russia " It is unlikely that colleagues, especially from United Russia, which has a majority in the current Duma, will follow Mr. Semigin’s call. After all, in reality, no one except government-controlled election commissions can falsify the results of the same federal election campaigns for the Duma and the President purely technically. And the authorities will clearly not go against themselves.

Ksenia VERETENNIKOVA, Daria GUSEVA