"Putin is always right"

The head of the Central Election Commission spoke about the laws under which federal elections will be held

On Thursday, the Central Election Commission held a video conference with the newly formed regional election commissions. The heads of local election commissions were interested in purely technical aspects of election preparation and previous practice. Only the Krasnodar representative decided to clarify the political issue - the attitude of the Central Election Commission to the party heads of regional commissions. The head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, explained all political issues on the same day at a press conference. And he confirmed that the law “Putin is always right” is still in force.

Vladimir Churov admitted in his response to his Krasnodar colleague Vera Galushko that, of course, he would like to see the heads of regional election commissions non-partisan, but existing legislation does not directly prescribe this. Later at a press conference, Mr. Churov said that in the practice of the Central Election Commission there is no stage of approval of party lists through the Kremlin: “Each party is free to do whatever it wants with its lists, but in my procedure, when these lists come to to me, there is no stage of transferring them across Red Square and back." This is how he commented on the statement of State Duma deputy Vladimir Ryzhkov that employees of the presidential administration allegedly requested draft election lists of all parties that had undergone the re-registration procedure. "Nobody demanded any lists from me, they did. do not exist in nature and will come to us after the decree on holding elections, according to the appropriate procedures, and this will happen no earlier than October,” the head of the Central Election Commission clarified. Although deputy Ryzhkov did not say that the lists were demanded from the Central Election Commission, where else really just no.

Chairman of the Tatarstan Election Commission Anatoly Fomin, during a video conference, was concerned about the employment of members of regional commissions with a casting vote, who, in accordance with the decision of the Constitutional Court, may be fired from their main place of work because of work for the benefit of the electoral process. According to Mr. Fomin, the resolution of the Constitutional Court deprives members of election commissions of professional guarantees. As CEC Secretary Nikolai Konkin explained to Vremya Novostei, this can actually happen during the period between election campaigns and is not entirely consistent with election legislation.

Representatives of the Tula Regional Election Commission complained that they were already receiving letters asking them to exclude data on the individual taxpayer number from the database of the GAS-Elections system as offending the religious feelings of citizens. And in the Ulyanovsk region, after compiling voter lists, it turned out that 12% of them are disabled.

Vladimir Churov repeated several times that compiling complete voter lists is one of the main tasks of the future campaign. He advised in regions where the turnout threshold was maintained at regional and local elections to conduct an additional check of voter lists: “We encountered in a number of regions, especially where the turnout threshold was maintained at regional and local elections, with malicious additions, deliberate inclusion in voter lists. incorrect surnames - those who died and left their place of residence in the region.” Expecting the fruits of his efforts to increase turnout, Vladimir Churov asked regional commissions to ensure that the number of voters included in the lists of each polling station does not exceed 2 thousand people.

At a press conference, the head of the Central Election Commission said that 15-17 parties were preparing for the State Duma elections on December 2, 2007. According to him, at the moment there are 21 parties in the unified state register of legal entities, while some of them either decided to self-liquidate or were liquidated by a court decision. The CEC holds regular consultations with the rest. Finally, the head of the Central Election Commission explained to journalists why his first law of life was the expression “Putin is always right”: “Churov’s first law sounds somewhat broader - “Putin is always right, because he follows the law.” The second law of the head of the Central Election Commission sounds even more intriguing: “We cooperate with everyone who cooperates with us, and whoever does not cooperate with us, we still cooperate with them.”

Daria GUSEVA