Translated material
Only death will do us part
To remove a defector from the elections, United Russia did not release him from its ranks
Leaving United Russia can sometimes be much more difficult than joining it. This was once again confirmed by a meeting of the Central Election Commission at the end of last week, during which members of the commission had to consider the complaint of their ex-colleague Igor Alyabiev, the former deputy head of the Yekaterinburg city election commission. The party in power did not release him from its tenacious embrace, thereby preventing the former official from running for the local Duma of the Berezovsky urban district.As it turned out, in 2003 Igor Alyabyev asked to join the ranks of United Russia and since December 2005 he has been listed as a member. Somewhat later, he apparently had to reconsider his views on life, because on September 5, 2006, Mr. Alyabyev wrote a statement asking to be accepted into the LDPR, which is very rare these days - usually the other way around: people try to move from other parties to United Russia. In May, when the new composition of the Yekaterinburg election commission was being formed, Igor Alyabyev did not find a position in it, after which he nominated himself as a candidate for parliamentarian of the Berezovsky district from the LDPR. However, the vigilant territorial election commission made inquiries and received confirmation from the Ordzhonikidze branch of United Russia that Mr. Alyabyev is still listed in the register of active “bears.” And this contradicts paragraph 6 of Article 23 of the Law “On Political Parties,” which prohibits a citizen from serving two party masters at the same time. In addition, the law does not allow members of some parties to be nominated on the lists of others.
As CEC member Evgeniy Kolyushin explained to a Vremya Novostey correspondent, “this rule was introduced to prevent members of small parties from running for large parties.” In particular, the famous ex-agrarian and now communist Nikolai Kharitonov at one time had to leave the ranks of the Agrarian Party in order to be nominated on the list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. Therefore, the Berezovsky election commission refused to register Mr. Alyabyev, and the indignant Zhirinovites appealed this decision in Moscow.
The question of the electoral fate of the defector caused such a heated discussion among the members of the Central Election Commission that journalists had not seen for a long time. Commission member Elena Dubrovina drew the attention of her colleagues to the fact that clause 4.3.6 of the United Russia charter provides for automatic termination of membership in the event of the death of a “bear”, loss of legal capacity or rights of Russian citizenship, as well as upon joining another party. “Betrayal here is equivalent to physical death; such a person does not exist for the party,” Ms. Dubrovina insisted. “According to the charter, he should be automatically released from membership.”
Leonid Ivlev, who worked at the election headquarters of United Russia in the regional elections last spring, objected that the “and also” union in the text of the charter is “not connecting, but dividing,” therefore it is unlawful to equate desertion from the party ranks with death. “Without receiving a letter of resignation, the party cannot do anything; you can’t just kick a person out!” - supported his colleague Valery Kryukov.
CEC Secretary Nikolai Konkin did not agree with other speakers, calling not to legitimize “political slavery”: “A person’s passive suffrage cannot depend on whether a decision was made to exclude him!” Inspired by this support, Alexander Kobrinsky, a member of the Central Election Commission with an advisory vote from the LDPR, addressed the commission with a similar appeal: “We will not turn party membership into serfdom!”
However, the representative of United Russia, Sergei Kostenko, spoke out against the free interpretations of the charter of the party in power. “Mr. Alyabyev’s membership would indeed have terminated automatically if he had notified the party that he had joined the LDPR,” Mr. Kostenko told a Vremya Novostei correspondent. He confirmed that even in the event of death, a citizen is considered expelled from the party only after the local branch removes him from the register after receiving the relevant information. In other words, in the period between the date of death and the day of exclusion from the register, the deceased de jure continues to be considered an active member of the party. It sounds crazy, but, as Evgeniy Kolyushin reminded, such absurdities happen in life all the time: “A person died on the first, and on the fifth they brought a pension.”
After a heated discussion, members of the Central Election Commission by a majority vote decided to consider Igor Alyabyev a United Russia member, which automatically meant a final refusal to register him as a candidate from the LDPR. True, in this case it is difficult to discern the fact of strangulation of the liberal opposition. Most likely, Mr. Alyabyev deliberately did not inform United Russia about joining the ranks of the liberal democrats in order to save a useful “bearish” party card for a rainy day. It was for this that he was punished by the party in power, which in other conditions would hardly have forcibly retained a “traitor” in its ranks.
It is possible, however, that Zhirinov’s party will make a retaliatory move. Thus, the deputy of the Sverdlovsk Regional Duma from the LDPR, Kirill Baranov, has already stated that the ranks of the Liberal Democrats allegedly still include candidates whom United Russia nominated in the elections of mayors of the Ural cities of Degtyarsk, Volchansk, Reftinsky and Sredneuralsk. The position of the election commissions on this matter is still unknown.