Ulyanovsk United Russia retained their positions

The city election commission sums up the results of the elections to the Ulyanovsk City Duma. According to preliminary voting results, United Russia retained its majority in the city parliament, winning in all single-mandate constituencies. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation returns to the City Duma, having received one seat on the party lists, the Liberal Democratic Party, in comparison with previous elections, loses one seat, retaining only one mandate. Communists traditionally do not agree with the election results and intend to challenge the election results in court.

In Ulyanovsk, preliminary results of voting in the elections of deputies to the City Duma of the fifth convocation, held on Sunday, September 13, have been summed up. This time, in accordance with the amendments made to the city charter last year, a mixed voting system is used - instead of 35 deputy seats, as was the case in the City Duma of the previous convocation, there are now 30 seats for deputies in single-mandate constituencies, and 10 seats for deputies, elected from party lists. According to the data of the GAS “Elections” system, it turns out that in all single-mandate constituencies, United Russia nominees won, gaining in most constituencies from 60 to 79% (in rare cases - 49–55%). According to the party lists, out of 10 seats, eight go to United Russia, which received 55.37% of the votes, one deputy seat goes to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (17.35%), and another to the LDPR (9.52%). Among those who will join the new City Duma from the party in power are the head of the city, Marina Bespalova, and the city manager, Sergei Panchin.

United Russia received the least amount of support in Leninsky District No. 25 (43.6%) and Zheleznodorozhny District No. 3 (46.9%); it is in these districts that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation has the best results - 28.9% and 26.1%, respectively. The spoiler parties, the Communist Party of Social Justice and the Communist Party Communists of Russia, scored 2.57% and 4.33%, respectively; Yabloko was supported by 2.29% of voters, A Just Russia by 2.94%, and the Rodina party by 2.19%. Voter turnout was 28.6%.

The city election commission and the regional election commission assess the past elections as “calm.” “Both in terms of the intensity of the struggle they are lower than in the past, and in terms of the number of complaints - on voting day we received only nine complaints, six of them were of the same type. The turnout was significantly higher than in the elections to the Legislative Assembly of the region - there was 19%,” explained the chairman of the city election commission, Vadim Andreev. Chairman of the regional election commission Yuri Andrienko also agrees with him, noting that there were no serious violations that could affect the final results - “no carousels, no stuffing.”

United Russia is pleased with the results. “People spoke out for real things and showed their attitude towards the authorities,” Konstantin Dolgov, head of the executive committee of the regional branch of United Russia, told Kommersant. He believes that “the voting results reflect the opinion of the entire population of the city, it cannot be otherwise.”

The first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Alexey Kurinny, has a different opinion, noting in a conversation with Kommersant that “such administrative pressure has never happened in any elections.” “The predicted turnout was in the region of 19–23%, everything higher is the use of administrative resources - coercion, enforcement, and the like,” explained Mr. Kurinny. He believes that “almost exclusively public sector people voted early, and voting at home was ensured by social security, which worked out everything in advance.” In his opinion, “if there were no administrative resources, another third and the votes of spoiler parties could be added to the results obtained, and the result would be at the level of United Russia.”

Of the violations identified, the Communists consider the main one to be “massive bribery of voters that took place on voting day,” about which they have already sent a complaint to the Central Election Commission. As the regional department of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation explained to Kommersant, at almost all polling stations at the entrance to the voting premises, special people handed out tickets for concerts of the groups “Hands Up!” or “Flowers” in exchange for invitation cards that were previously distributed “in the United Russia tents during the election campaign” as part of the so-called “Dialogue” project to discuss the city’s development strategy. The invitation card states that the recipient needs to vote and then receive a ticket to the concert. The party in power denies any involvement in this, noting that “the project was initiated by the regional branch of the Union of Mechanical Engineers and is aimed at increasing turnout.” The regional election commission notes that no evidence of bribery was found. Nevertheless, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation intends to protest the election results by filing a statement on these facts in court, and indicate its dissenting opinion in the protocol of the election results.

It is worth noting that a detailed analysis of data from the State Automated System “Elections” conducted by Kommersant shows that the percentage of those who voted early is quite large (9.4% of the number of voters), and in 11 districts it is above 10%, in a number of polling stations it is above 15%. , and in the railway PEC No. 3415 it is 21.3%, in the PEC No. 3931 of the Leninsky district - 20.4%. The percentage of those voting at home is also high (almost 3% of those who took part in the voting), and in ten districts it ranges from 3 to 8%, and in a number of polling stations it is even prohibitive: in district No. 4, PEC No. 3431–47, 9 %; PEC No. 3435–20.5%; PEC No. 3436–31.3%; in district No. 25, PEC 3401–31.8%; and in PEC No. 3747 (district No. 17) - 59.9%. The head of the regional election commission, Yuri Andrienko, told Kommersant that he will definitely analyze this data, and if certain parties make complaints, “then the analysis, quite possibly, will be within the framework of legal proceedings.”

“Unfortunately, this is indeed the case, and throughout the country, this is an attempt by administrations to somehow compensate for the decline in votes for the party in power in the face of signals coming from above about the need to eliminate massive fraud in the vote count. On the other hand, this is an attempt to increase turnout, which naturally declines due to the lack of political competition. And all this is a violation of the principle of Russian elections, which is called “voluntariness.” And this, by and large, is a violation of the laws,” says Andrei Buzin, head of the interregional association of voters, an expert in the field of electoral law.

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk

The opposition was given one seat each