Nobody disrespected the “Voice”

Dmitry Orlov is a political scientist and political strategist who has been collaborating with the United Russia party for a long time as a consultant. Orlov is considered one of the authors of the ideas of the “Putin Plan” in the 2007-2008 election cycle and the All-Russian Popular Front in 2011-2012. In addition, as co-chairman of the public council "Honest Choice", Orlov coordinated the work of his own corps of observers in the Duma and presidential elections - and at the same time was one of the main critics of the "Voice" association.

"Lente.ru" Dmitry Orlov spoke about why United Russia did not actually fail in the Duma elections. He also explained that the Golos association is to blame for its problems itself.

"Lenta.ru": Why did United Russia fail ?

Dmitry Orlov: I don’t think it failed. But its result was less favorable than in the 2007 elections, for many reasons. In 2007 there was a mobilization campaign, in 2011 there was none at all. In 2007, let’s remember, an open bet was made on the parliamentary campaign: Putin topped the list, “a referendum on support for Putin,” and this “referendum” gave those same 64 percent. This result always seemed a little excessive to me. Therefore, for a normal policy, 49 is a completely adequate result.

There was an inertial and not very proactive election campaign; against the backdrop of tough campaigns, for example, “ A Just Russia ,” it sagged openly.

Finally, there was a tough propaganda campaign against United Russia, generally outside the formal propaganda field - “a party of swindlers and thieves.” By the end of December, when the authorities experienced maximum uncertainty in their abilities, the maximum degree of distrust in the party was 34 percent. Now - 48.5. The party was simply not beaten, as they say. This shows that her support is conservative, deep, vital in nature. It is enough to simply leave her alone - and the level of trust is restored. This means that it exists, conservative and calm, at a fairly high level.

Public Council "Honest Choice", of which you are one of the co-chairs - what is it?

This is a non-governmental initiative of public figures, which is designed to monitor the legitimacy of the electoral process. We have been working for more than two years and, in my opinion, we are working quite effectively. There are actively working co-chairs - [Vladimir] Mamontov [president of the Izvestia editorial board, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "God Forbid!"], [Alexander] Brod [head of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights] and yours truly - and there are council members who take part in some occasional events. We have a network of observers; it is deployed during both regional and federal election campaigns; We have a hotline, we have a reporting system.

In general, we rely on constant monitoring of the electoral process, that is, not of polling stations, that is, of course, they are at the end of the campaign, I just think that this is not so important. It is very important, in fact, to monitor the real violations and what is really happening throughout the campaign. So when I talk about observers, they are actually monitoring specialists. These are people in the regions, usually two per region, who monitor the legality of the process, prepare statements, promptly respond to any problems on our Facebook page, and so on.

So, how was the Duma campaign?

Press conference dedicated to the preliminary summing up of voting results in the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the sixth convocation. Photo by RIA Novosti, Grigory Sysoev
Lenta.ru

We came to the conclusion that the presidential campaign, compared with the Duma campaign, was much more legal. We had many parliamentary questions. But we draw, perhaps for some people a very vulgar and banal conclusion, but it seems adequate to us - the conclusion that the scale and nature of the violations that we observed did not allow us to call into question the legality of the elections and the legitimacy of their results. Neither in parliamentary elections, nor in presidential elections.

It must be said that the real scale of violations can be assessed when all the claims are filed, when we see an array of claims from political parties. We haven’t seen a large number of people after the parliamentary elections. Despite the fact that there was a lot of noise, videos, some other problems and complaints, we do not have a large array of complaints in the judicial system. Moreover, I would say that even in earlier times, in the 2000s, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Yabloko collected these very specific facts more intensively and more seriously. For example, the legal service of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which Vadim Solovyov heads, worked more actively - they simply did this online all the time. They sought to cancel elections in certain areas and territories. Now, it seems to me, there is not even such a task for them.

Maybe they are simply disillusioned with our judicial system?

I don't think that's the issue. I think that they were not disappointed in the judicial system, they realized that with the help of these tools they cannot radically change the situation. When preliminary assessments of the election results were given, on the evening of the 4th, Zyuganov said that the elections were stolen, thieves, and so on. Afonin, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, said that there were millions of stolen votes. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has never acted like this. They always collected facts, systematized them, and their position was reasoned.

What was stated was, firstly, outright demagoguery, and secondly, of course, it was focused solely on PR. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation has never acted like this, I want to emphasize again. Now they are not filing any significant lawsuits; they have recognized the parliamentary elections.

There are two markers, two specific signs, two significant decisions by which one can judge whether the party actually recognizes the election results or not. This is the signing of final protocols and the adoption of mandates. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation did both in December. Therefore, you need to be aware that people perfectly understand the essence of this game.

This is a game of escalation, this is a game that allows you to bargain with the authorities and so on. But, firstly, they accept the rules of the game, secondly, they signed protocols, and thirdly, they accepted mandates. Everyone sees this.

You are often accused of being a spoiler. That the public council “Honest Choice” is a spoiler, for example, for the “Voice” association. Because you seem to be doing everything that Golos does, but at the same time you are a pro-government association.

I will not hide: of course, our organization does not set goals to destabilize the political situation or delegitimize elections, we are investigating specific violations. By the way, on election day and the day before our “hotline” was simply red-hot, mainly for absentee ballots. 80 percent of our calls were absentee. During the presidential elections, we noted many problems with web cameras, and with transparent ballot boxes, and there were many traditional violations, we are recording them. But we also record violations by opposition candidates and opposition parties in parliamentary elections, of course.

I don’t agree with you that we are a spoiler for “The Voice” - primarily because “The Voice,” by the way, was not so well known until November-December 2011.

Before they started to bully him.

Executive Director of the Association "Voice" Liliya Shibanova at a press conference of the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, dedicated to the problems of observing and protecting the electoral rights of citizens of the Russian Federation. Photo RIA Novosti/Alexan

Lenta.ru

You know, no one oppressed him. Shibanova, the head of Golos, herself made a big mistake. It all started with Shibanova’s statement that activists from the PARNAS and Solidarity parties were taking part in the “Voice” observation. Naturally, the question that arises next is: “Golos” receives Western funding; maybe the observers who are from PARNAS and Solidarity are just a mechanism for financing PARNAS and Solidarity with the help of Golos? This logical conclusion does not require much intelligence; in addition to the public council “Honest Choice”, it was made by many other organizations, the Public Chamber, and so on.

It was a very serious game of escalation, which Shibanova herself undertook. Either it was Shibanova’s stupidity, but then it means that USAID and other structures that work with Golos would be better off hiring other managers.

No one, no country will tolerate being told publicly that its sovereignty is limited. And this statement of hers was exactly that in content. PARNAS and Solidarity are political organizations, they participate in the political process. It turned out later that many local branches of Golos directly relied on the activities of the PARNAS and Solidarity structures. So doesn’t Golos finance these same structures?

So does it finance or not? Has anyone found the payments somewhere?

If she herself declares this, why look for payments? If there are local organizations of PARNAS and Solidarity that acted as Golos observers, what kind of payments are needed here? These people received money from the Golos association.

Did you receive it?

We did, of course. They worked professionally.

Still, there is a certain difference between a funding investigation and an email leak to LifeNews.

Let's close the topic with "The Voice", I think I've already said enough about this.

Still, there is one last question that I can’t help but ask. It’s one thing when law enforcement agencies are involved in this, and another thing when law enforcement agencies or the border service leak private correspondence to the media.

Is it really proven that they leaked it?

This has been proven in about the same way as, according to your version, the fact of financing PARNAS through Golos has been proven. That is, no one has seen the payment slips, but everyone understands everything. Shibanova’s laptop is confiscated at customs, after a while it is returned, and after some time her correspondence ends up in LifeNews.

I personally stated then and adhere to this position now that if there is confidential information that is lost by a citizen, he knows under what circumstances, and it is published in the media, he, of course, must insist on bringing those responsible to justice, even criminal liability. Shibanova, by the way, doesn’t do this, I wonder why. Remember, there was a big leak, the mail was hacked - and it turned out that they received money from the State Department for each specific violation. That is, the State Department encouraged them to create violations. And this was revealed from the hacked email. As far as I understand, there was no trial or any prosecution of the hackers or those who made it public on the part of Golos.

But I will emphasize once again that I do not consider these methods to be correct, adequate or legal. That is, Golos should have initiated an investigation by Russian law enforcement agencies and written a statement.

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Dreamers.

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