Central Election Commission

Yesterday, a member of the Central Election Commission, Oleg Zakharov, held a press conference in Samara, at which he expressed dissatisfaction with the inaction of the Samara city election commission, which “has still not made any decision on registering an initiative group to recall the mayor of the city, Georgy Limansky.” Mr. Zakharov arrived in Samara at the invitation of the public organization Region-Samara, which advocates the resignation of the mayor. The City Election Commission has so far declined to comment. Let us recall that members of the public organization Region-Samara announced their plans to begin the procedure for recalling the mayor of Samara in October of this year. Human rights activists accused Mr. Limansky of the collapse of the city economy, a huge deficit of the city budget, as well as inaction in solving the problems of Samara HOAs and housing cooperatives. Documents for registration of the initiative group to recall the mayor were submitted to the city election commission on November 5. According to the organization’s lawyer, Alexander Bodrov, the city election commission had to make its decision to register the group or not by November 20. On November 14, members of Region-Samara sent a statement to the Central Election Commission in which they asked to oblige the city electoral commission to review the documents submitted for registration within 15 days and to send a CEC representative to Samara to monitor this process. Oleg Zakharov became this observer. (Kommersant has written about this several times.)
Yesterday's visit of Oleg Zakharov to Samara is not the first. Last week, a member of the Central Election Commission already came to the regional center to check the information in the application that the Central Election Commission received from the chairman of the initiative group, the famous Samara human rights activist Vladimir Indiryakov. “A check is now being carried out, materials of the Central Election Commission working group on this issue are being prepared,” says Mr. Zakharov, “and in the near future it will be submitted to a meeting of the Central Election Commission.” It is especially worth noting that yesterday Oleg Zakharov finally met with the chairman of the city election commission, Sergei Nikologorsky, which he was unable to do on his last visit, since Mr. Nikologorsky was absent from his workplace. As Mr. Zakharov said, the results of the conversation with the head of the city election commission convinced him that the city election commission does not fully understand and realize the importance of the task facing it to ensure voting rights. The fact that there is no specific recall procedure at the level of regional legislation cannot be considered a basis for depriving citizens of this right to vote. “When a gap in the legislation interferes with the implementation of citizens’ voting rights, it was the election commissions, in this case the Samara City Election Commission, that were supposed to help citizens realize their voting rights, but from a conversation with the chairman of the election commission I took away only one thing: his desire to delay the decision as long as possible question for no apparent reason." Voicing his personal impressions after communicating with Sergei Nikologorsky, Mr. Zakharov noted that he “has significant doubts about the bias of the commission in this particular issue.” In a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent, a representative of the Central Election Commission said that no matter how the situation develops, legal procedures cannot be avoided. Moreover, it is difficult to say which side will initiate them; everything will depend on in whose favor the final will be decided. The opinion of the Central Election Commission in this case can only determine how to act in court so that all actions, in this case of the commission, are protected. Oleg Zakharov did not dare to say in favor of which side, in his opinion, the situation with the mayor’s recall would be resolved, saying only that “anything is possible.” The city election commission declined to comment.
In addition, another event occurred yesterday that could affect the development of events in the protracted process of registration of the initiative group. Region - Samara lawyer Alexander Bodrov received the status of a member of the regional election commission with the right to an advisory vote. According to Mr. Bodrov, his receipt of such a position provides a number of opportunities to monitor and influence the consideration of the application for registration of the initiative group to recall the head of the city, since a member of the regional election commission has the right to demand inclusion on the agenda at a meeting of lower commissions, in this case the city commission days of certain issues and voting on them. And the lower commission does not have the right to refuse consideration.
OLGA PASTERNATSKAYA

Kommersant (Samara) No. 218 dated November 28, 2003

Clouds are gathering over the Samara mayor