Through the "hole" to the governors

The Russian authorities do not consider the "foreign agents" of governors elected for the money of offshore companies

Parliamentary parties and their candidates in regional elections receive financial support from abroad and attract budget funds to finance election campaigns, which is prohibited by federal law. In fact, this is so, but formally everything is clean. Schemes of shadow financing of Russian election campaigns are revealed by the report of the Voice movement , which protects the rights of voters. The authors of the report showed how the fake extra -budgetary funds are created, how university teachers or unemployed suddenly transfer millions of rubles in support of United Russia, and why the Russian authorities do not consider the “foreign agents” of governors elected for the money of offshore companies.

One of the authors of the report, the coordinator of the Voice movement in the Altai Territory Stanislav Andreichuk emphasizes that the study was conducted by open sources, and hopes that this report will force the authorities to pay attention to the imperfection of Russian laws:

From the point of view of the current legislation, nothing is violated

- I did not work alone, together with the network of our regional experts, who also found and verified the information. All data published in our report are taken from official sources. These are either the financial reports of political parties for 2013-14, published on the website of the Central Election Commission, or information on the receipt of funds to the election funds of candidates, which are published on the sites of election commissions of the constituent entities of the Federation. There are the names of companies, individuals and donations are listed. After that, we worked with the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, and in the case of limited liability companies we found out who is the founders of these societies and traced the entire chain to the final owner. If the donors were joint -stock companies, then we worked with those officially published lists of affiliated persons - there are shares of ownership of the company's shares. All data on legal entities given in the report are supported by official papers on the date of donation plus or minus for two months. As for individuals, we asked our regional coordinators to verify the data, and the report included only the information that was confirmed by our regional experts.

- Candidates received formally foreign financing. Because most of the so -called foreign enterprises are the company registered in offshores: in Cyprus, British Virgin Islands, in Belize ... Is this practice legal or not?

This financing is foreign, but it becomes possible, because there is a "hole" in the law

-There is a 58th article of the Law on Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights of Citizens of the Russian Federation, the wording is approximately as follows: "They do not have the right to sacrifice the company to the election funds, 30 percent or more belong to foreign owners or authorities, municipalities." Those facts that we are talking about in the report are formally not suitable for this basis. What was done in this case? There is a certain company "A" that donates, say, 1.5 million rubles. This company has the only founder - the Russian company "B". But that, in turn, can fully belong to the company registered in offshore. As a result, it turns out that from the point of view of the current legislation, nothing is violated, and such money can be obtained, but we understand that the final owner is someone either in the Cyprus or in the British Virgin Islands, in the United Arab Emirates ... We can only guess who this owner, but we don’t know for sure.

Counting votes in the elections to the State Duma of Russia December 5, 2011

- Can this be considered as a gap in Russian legislation, violating the transparency of election campaigns and processes?

-Yes, firstly, he violates the transparency of election campaigns, and secondly, the practice that we discovered, in our opinion, contradicts the very spirit of the norm that was spelled out in the election law. That is, one way or another, this financing is foreign, but it becomes possible, because there is a “hole” in the law.

- If this referred to non -profit organizations, among which for several years the Ministry of Justice identifies “foreign agents”, if offshore sponsors the authorities would be considered to be foreign financing?

- At least, such a “hole” in the legislation would be very quickly closed.

- In different regions, there are very different systems of publication of data on financing election campaigns. In some regions, they publish data on donations to the election fund starting with the amount of 10 thousand for individuals and 100 thousand for legal entities, in other regions this bar has already been raised to 40 and 400 thousand, respectively. Is such a difference legal and why there is no unified system of publication of data on financing election campaigns?

Transparency has never been a skate of our political figures and statesmen

-Because formally our state is still federal, and according to the federal law, the size and procedure for publishing these data is determined by the election commission of the subject of the Federation. As a rule, these norms have now been prescribed in regional laws. However, over the past year, practice has changed for the better. Because at the end of 2014 the norm appeared in the Federal Law that it is possible to publish data from 25 thousand rubles of donations of legal entities, and this norm began to duplicate in regional legislation. Those rare deviations that we see in 2015 are already exceptions. As for the election campaign of the past, 2014, then the situation was much worse. Somewhere data were published, starting from 200 thousand, somewhere starting with a million, but somewhere they were not published at all. Now, after all, it gradually comes to one denominator. Another question is that it is not clear why the logic of the election commissions of the constituent entities of the Federation or regional lawmakers in some cases set their bar for the publication of such data. I think that there is a share of laziness, and the desire to still hide some of the information about real sponsors. Otherwise, it would not be necessary to build those schemes of hidden financing that have been debugged and act for many years. Transparency has never been a skate by our political figures and statesmen.

- As follows from the report, some candidates want to appear before the public more economical in their costs for the election campaign than it actually was. According to the authors of the report, many candidates show too small the size of the electoral funds. But this assessment, apparently, is intuitive. And what are such suspicions based on, is there any informal norm, how much should the average candidate be accepted for the election campaign for one voter? In the report, the figures are very different in the regions: there are 50 rubles for the voter, there are more than 100 rubles, and there are two rubles. Is there any averaged figure that allows you to judge that the candidate indicated the reliable size of his election costs?

Where does a person working in the budget sphere are not in the highest paid position, suddenly 3 million rubles are taken, which he donates to the political party?

- There are such numbers, and political technologists know them well. But there is just logic, experience, ordinary practice. For example, in 2014, candidate Andrei Bocharov, who won the governor’s elections in the Volgograd region, according to official figures, spent only 250 thousand rubles on the entire election campaign. The maximum permitted size of the electoral fund was 77.5 million rubles. De facto 250 thousand rubles is the amount that in our usual practice is barely enough, for example, to pass the electoral municipal filter for registration of the candidate. Because there are expenses for the maintenance of the headquarters, there is expenses for the maintenance of a lawyer, there is expenses for a notary public, which certifies the signatures of municipal deputies, and these costs are more or less stable, cannot be dismissed from them. For example, in the Altai Territory, the municipal filter amounted to 550 signatures, and they were supposed to be certified by a notary public, and the notary was supposed to pay for this certificate of the candidate from his election fund. Plus, there should have been the costs of logistics and much more, which cannot be avoided. But two candidates in the Altai Territory, who were registered, passed the entire election campaign, showed that one for the entire electoral cycle spent 300 thousand, the other a little more than 100 thousand rubles. These are just unrealistic expenses!

- Another thing that can hardly be attributed to the real is the size of donations from individuals who sometimes reach several million, and people are either unemployed or employees of the budget, social sphere, university teachers. Firstly, are there any legal grounds in order to, suspecting a front financing, attract those who suit this, customers to the court? Or maybe these are formally legal schemes and it remains only to suspect that the matter is unclean?

- I think that in such cases the only one who can act is the tax inspectorate that has the right to check where a person working in the budget sphere is not in the most high -paid position, suddenly 3 million rubles are taken, which he calmly donates a political party, disposable or within two years. I do not see who else can check it.

-Is it possible to contact the prosecutor’s office on this basis? Based on the data that the official salary is approximately such and such in this position, and the person sacrificed the political party incomparably a large amount.

- This is a question that I am now asking myself, but I don’t know an answer. My colleagues and I have not studied him yet.

- Which of the "discoveries" of this report personally as its author most impressed you? Maybe you became unexpected or surpassed your suspicions and expectations?

I thought, they say, it is clear that we will find some “suspicious” donations-one, two, three, and here-for tens of millions of rubles

- It seems to me that what we showed in the report, these facts are only an iceberg top. Because, unfortunately, a significant part of revenues from legal entities, and from individuals at the moment, cannot be traced. Say, United Russia has created a special financing system, when they have most of the donations from legal entities from the so -called regional party support funds, and this is the chain visible to citizens. But who sacrificed the money to these regional funds is not at all known to voters. And there is a lot of money, there are hundreds of millions of rubles. There are also closed joint -stock companies, the lists of whose affiliated persons we do not see, and we do not know who is the owner there. Probably, the Ministry of Justice or someone else knows, but we, unfortunately, are not. Taking all this into account, I am surprised that, according to open data, we managed to find so many problematic donations. I thought, they say, it is clear that we will find some “suspicious” donations-one, two, three, and here-for tens of millions of rubles. This is an amazing story for me, of course.

- Any batch can use these schemes. But the report mainly features large parliamentary parties - United Russia, Fair Russia. This suggests that their legal support is better? Or maybe this is a story that politicians of varying degrees of honesty go to the polls?

The total election fund of candidates from United Russia is 2.5 times higher than the total election fund of all other candidates combined

-Firstly, of course, we watched primarily parliamentary parties. And the funds that candidates of other parties receive are not comparable with the costs of parliamentary parties. The non -parliamentary opposition simply had nothing to dig. We looked at the entire list of companies (this is a few hundred) that were available to us. What they found was described without any seizures. As a result, we see that the recipient of donations is mainly United Russia and only in some cases other parties. It seems to me that the main problem is that parliamentary parties have a different level of financing than everyone else. If we look at the size of the electoral funds, then (the report on this is also mentioned) the total electoral fund of candidates from United Russia is 2.5 times higher than the total electoral fund of all other candidates combined at the moment, in the 2015 campaign. Accordingly, the "United Russia", I think, is more violations.

- What effect do you expect from this report?

- I would really like to hope that the recommendations that we have in the report will be taken into account. First of all, we insist that the ultimate owners of the companies that donated funds or candidates should be disclosed. In addition, it is necessary, of course, to finalize Russian legislation, removing the legislative “hole” that we talked about. But the most important thing is that citizens should pay attention to things that may threaten, including their security and their political interests. And above all, citizens should think about to whom they trust their votes.