Translated material
Boycott rules
State Duma deputy is trying to disrupt the elections of the Sverdlovsk regional parliament
The elections to the Sverdlovsk Regional Duma suddenly became intriguing: three weeks before voting day, it is unknown whether they will take place or not. The thing is that in addition to the ten parties participating in the campaign, there is another team working in the region, which has set its task to disrupt the elections.Let us remind you that elections to the regional parliament will be held on October 8, 2006. According to preliminary sociological polls, the United Russia party will receive about 45% of the votes of Sverdlovsk residents; the LDPR, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the Russian Party of Life, which is strong mainly in Yekaterinburg, have much less potential. For an election to be valid, at least 25% of registered voters must turn out. The predictability of the election results has already played a cruel joke on them - only 33-35% of Sverdlovsk residents told sociologists about their desire to go to the polls on the second Sunday of October. As before, the vast majority of them are pensioners.
It is for them that the campaign of Russian State Duma deputy Anton Bakov (pictured), launched in parallel with the election campaign, is designed. Like the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard Rossel, who heads the United Russia list, who has been making campaign visits to municipalities for several weeks now, the parliamentarian also actively meets with residents of the region, sometimes anticipating the appearance of the head of the region, sometimes convincing Sverdlovsk residents after Mr. Rossel’s visit. Two weeks ago in Yekaterinburg, he gathered representatives of city pensioners and formed a kind of strike committee, which approved in advance an impossible ultimatum to the authorities.
The essence of the ultimatum is this: pensioners of the region will go to the polls only if, by October 1, pensions are increased by 2.5 times, and their size is tied to the level of GDP. The logic of the ultimatum is as follows: for many years, residents of the region believed in the election promises of the authorities and went to the polls, but after the victory, the newly elected parliamentarians forgot about the orders, and pensioners were left with nothing. History must not repeat itself this time.
At first, the authorities treated the ultimatum with irony. Eduard Rossel, for example, said that Mr. Bakov works for United Russia, since all collected complaints will be taken into account by deputies from the ruling party after their election. But after the deputy’s team began to increasingly gather Sverdlovsk residents, and the symbol of the protest action - the St. George’s ribbon - appeared on street billboards with the inscription “Pensioners a decent pension,” the authorities realized that the idea of disrupting the elections had serious support among the population. On the “direct line” of the chairman of the regional election commission, Vladimir Mostovshchikov, the topic of disrupting the elections was the most frequently asked question among Sverdlovsk residents. And although Mr. Mostovshchikov assured his interlocutors that there should be no problems with attendance, he commented on the problem very sternly.
“According to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, citizens of our country have the opportunity to freely exercise their rights. Calling on Russian citizens not to exercise these rights is not in accordance with the Constitution. And the electoral law says that you can agitate people for voting, but not against it,” Mr. Mostovshchikov explained the illegality of the action. Speaking personally about Deputy Bakov, the chairman of the commission noted that there is administrative responsibility for such actions: “If there is a statement from at least two citizens that they witnessed how he called on citizens to do something, the issue will be resolved on the basis of these statements to bring him to justice according to the procedure established by law. He is a State Duma deputy and has immunity, but nevertheless there is a procedure for resolving this issue.”
Later, the commission came up with an official interpretation of the legislation on the illegality of campaigning against elections: “Such activity, under certain circumstances and the presence of direct intent, can be qualified as obstruction of a citizen’s free exercise of his electoral rights, and, since the legislator allows the commission of this crime in any way, lead to the involvement of persons those who carry it out are subject to criminal liability.”
However, the election commission has not yet been able to disrupt the anti-election campaign. Last Friday, Verkhoturye Magistrate Svetlana Klimenko considered the case against two agitators who distributed leaflets calling not to go to the elections on October 8, Nadezhda Markova and Lyubov Klemenko. The women were charged with violating Article 5.12 of the Code of Administrative Offences, “Illegal distribution of campaign materials.” However, the lawyer was able to prove that the call not to go to the polls is not campaigning. The judge agreed with this position and found the agitators innocent.
The prosecutor's office of the Sverdlovsk region took a similar position. Senior assistant regional prosecutor for media relations Rimma Bobina notes: federal legislation clearly states what should not be in campaign materials: calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order, inciting social, racial or national hatred. Propaganda for boycotting elections is not prohibited.
Mr. Bakov himself has already addressed the head of the Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, with a letter in which he criticized the activities of Vladimir Mostovshchikov and the official commentary of the regional election commission. “You, as a lawyer, will certainly raise questions about the use of the term “campaign” in the text, which by definition cannot be directed against participation in elections, and attempts to distort the interpretation of criminal and administrative legislation in the form of the so-called “clarification of the Sverdlovsk Election Commission region, writes the parliamentarian. - I understand how difficult it is for the head of the election commission to resist various influences, but I consider it unacceptable to publicly undermine the authority of our electoral system. Unfortunately, the lack of will and helpfulness of the head of the election commission of the Sverdlovsk region have long become known to the general public.”
There has been no comment from the CEC on this letter yet. And the regional authorities began to fight on other fronts: speeches appeared in the media by the head of the regional department of the Pension Fund of Russia, Sergei Dubinkin, calling on elderly Sverdlovsk residents not to buy into political adventures and wait for the planned increase in pensions in 2007-2008, when it will gradually be brought to the subsistence level minimum.