Translated material
The lists include
The Central Election Commission has started working with lists of candidates for deputies
Yesterday, the Central Election Commission began certifying party lists of candidates for State Duma deputies and will now meet daily in order to complete the necessary procedure within the prescribed period. The first certified list belongs to the Democratic Party of Russia. Today the Central Election Commission must certify the list of the Agrarian Party.“Within the established timeframe, that is, no later than ten days from the date of nomination, we must certify the submitted lists of parties,” the head of the Central Election Commission, Vladimir Churov, explained to reporters yesterday. According to him, this is only the first stage of working with the lists. “We have until October 28 to verify the information that candidates have provided about themselves and make a decision on registration.”
As CEC member Maya Grishina reported, the Democratic Party “presented all the documents required by federal law.” The certified list contains 578 candidates, two less than those nominated by the party congress. According to Ms Grishina, these two candidates were excluded by the party before submitting the list to the commission. The federal list, approved by the party congress on September 18, is headed by party leader Andrei Bogdanov, chairman of the executive committee Vyacheslav Smirnov and his deputy Oleg Gimazov. The list is divided into 99 regional groups.
The CEC also registered a list of authorized representatives of the DPR and approved its emblem. Now the Democratic Party is allowed to open a special election account in Sberbank, that is, to begin financing its election campaign.
Certification of federal party lists is one of the stages preceding official registration. To register the DPR as a party that does not have its representation in the current parliament, it must provide 200 thousand signature sheets to the CEC or pay an electoral deposit in the amount of 60 million rubles.
Also yesterday, representatives of the “Civil Force” brought documents to the Central Election Commission. Previously, in addition to the Democratic Party of Russia, the lists were submitted by the Greens, the Peace and Unity Party, and the Liberal Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, the Central Election Commission approved a list of debtor parties that, in the previous State Duma elections, received less than 2% of the votes and, in accordance with the law, were supposed to return the money for free television and print space, but did not do so. Let us recall that following the results of the last Duma elections, the total debt of political parties to state media exceeded 600 million rubles. Within four years, most political structures paid off their debts, but some parties simply disappeared from the political arena. As a result, only one debtor remained - the Party of the Revival of Russia (RRP) of former State Duma Speaker Gennady Seleznev. The party owes television and newspapers about 2 million rubles. (The PVR is not going to participate in the upcoming elections, and its leader Gennady Seleznev will be among the top three of the Patriots of Russia party and has already ceased membership in the PVR.)
The communists proposed including two more parties in the list of debtors - the Greens and the Peace and Unity Party, since they owed the state for the 1999 State Duma elections, and now they intend to participate in the campaign again. But members of the Central Election Commission recalled that the law does not have retroactive force, and the provision of the law on the return of money for previous elections under the threat of depriving them of access to free campaigning came into force only in 2002. In addition, the threshold that must be overcome to avoid payments has since been changed: previously it was 2% of the votes, and now it is 3%.
And member of the Central Election Commission Igor Borisov hinted that none of the participants in the Duma campaign has the right to count on debt write-off following the 2007 elections. According to him, “the decision taken by the Central Election Commission not to deprive the Peace and Unity Party and the environmental party “Greens” of the opportunity for free campaigning should not be perceived as liberalization or financial amnesty.”
Also yesterday, Vladimir Churov said that the Central Election Commission had already stopped several attempts to use illegal campaigning in the State Duma elections. He explained that we are talking about the production of anonymous newspapers and leaflets, which “everyone disavows.” The head of the Central Election Commission noted that all copies were confiscated before distribution.