RACE - IN BAGS

TOWARDS ELECTIONS

Regional legislators passed amendments to the law on elections. The maximum amount of election funds will increase 15 times and amount to 15 million rubles (for parties) and 3 million for candidates in single-member districts. The party in power, which ...

Regional legislators passed amendments to the law on elections. The maximum amount of electoral funds will increase 15 times and amount to 15 million rubles (for parties) and 3 million for candidates in single-mandate districts.

The party in power, which introduced these amendments, will have enough funds to purchase seats in the regional parliament both wholesale and retail. But for single-members from independents and from parties that do not have factions in the State Duma, the size of election funds will most likely become an insurmountable barrier that will cut them off from participation in the elections. And if earlier an entrance ticket to the elections to the Omsk Legislative Assembly was affordable, for example, by human rights activists, since it cost 30 thousand rubles, then its new price - 450 thousand - cannot be overpowered by them, just as small parties cannot collect more than two million rubles. There is no hope for a signature either.

Thus, regional elections become exclusively a competition between local elites, and in the Omsk region they are all as one close to the party in power.