Ufa Election Commission rejects “illiterate” candidates for deputies

On June 6, 2005, information appeared about a scandal that broke out in Bashkiria related to the registration of candidates for deputies of local self-government bodies.

The election commission of Ufa, says Pavel Kanygin in the article "The Bashkir Election Commission Filters Candidates for Deputies", published in No. 42 of Novaya Gazeta, 2005, re-checked the documents of already registered candidates, during which it turned out that 7 people made "rude grammatical and logical errors" in statements (for example, inflecting birthplace or writing "engineer" instead of "electrical engineer"). The Electoral Committee appealed to the Oktyabrsky District Court, which on the same day withdrew these candidates from the pre-election race. Two weeks earlier, the court, at the suggestion of the City Electoral Committee, issued a similar decision in respect of another 33 candidates. Then the reason for the mass refusal of registration, according to members of the election commission, was also the incorrect execution of documents. Of the 80 independent candidates, only 34 did not lose their registration.

According to human rights activist Edward Murzin, the Bashkir leadership is trying by all means to get trusted people into city councils, while screening out independent candidates.

Sources

• Kanygin P. Bashkir Electoral Commission filters candidates for deputies // New Newspaper. 2005. No. 42.