Complicity in the elections

The upcoming elections to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the VII convocation are unique in recent Russian history. Elections in Russia are held for the first time after the act of external aggression that occurred in 2014 - armed rejection of part of the territory of Ukraine in favor of the Russian Federation.

The international community in its vast majority did not recognize these actions of the Russian authorities legal and responding norms of international law. The UN General Assembly adopted the A/Res/68/262 resolution of 03/27/2014, condemning the actions of the Russian authorities, which does not recognize the Crimean referendum on 03/18/2014 and confirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its international boundaries. These actions entailed the application of international sanctions in relation to the Russian Federation and the annexed territory, which, already at the moment, two years later, has significantly reflected in the economic situation of Russian citizens and residents of Crimea.

As the President of Russia Vladimir Putin was subsequently subsequently recognized in his interview, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were directly involved in the annexation of Crimea. In fact, a referendum in the Crimea (by the way, not provided for by either the Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, nor the Constitution of Ukraine) took place under the muzzles of the machine guns of Russian military personnel, and the calculation of its results (yes, we all remember the Churovsky 146%) cannot cause confidence.

From the point of view of international law, the Russian authorities have committed a crime. Now the responsibility for these actions lies personally at President Vladimir Putin, a number of higher officials of Russia, as well as on some citizens of Ukraine - collaborators from Crimea.

However, through the elections that will also be held in Crimea, the authorities want to distribute this responsibility to all the voting and elected citizens of Russia. Agree, a clever trick.

According to the current Russian legislation, the elections will be held according to a mixed electoral system: half of 450 deputies will be elected according to party lists in the Unified Federal District, the second half in single -mandate districts.

The peculiarity of party lists in the Unified Federal District is that the parties cannot arbitrarily choose which region they want to be elected and in which they do not. During the pre -election race, some parties stated that they would not hold election campaigns in Crimea, at the same time on a single voting day on 18.09 they will be present in ballots in each polling station, including in Crimea. And, of course, potentially each party in any case will receive a certain number of votes from Crimea, which will be taken into account in the total number of votes received by each batch in the Unified Federal District.

If you put a spoonful of tar in honey, it will no longer be honey at all. Thus, the legitimacy of the votes received on party lists will be discredited by the votes received from the annexed territory recognized by the international community part of Ukraine. Given the presence of single -mandate districts in the Crimea, the total number of “illegitimate” deputies in the State Duma will exceed 51%, that is, in our conditional barrel of this tar, there will already be more than honey.

The only way out of this unpleasant situation for the “opposition” parties will be the removal of party lists from the election race. Will the “opposition” parties go to such a fundamental step? I doubt. At the stake is decent money from state party financing, billions of rubles.

It makes no sense to speak about the “pro-government” parties and the “spoilers” parties, everything is clear with these.

As for the candidates in single-mandate districts, my opinion is that two or three decent people throughout the country, which, perhaps, will be allowed through these elections to parliament, should not “ennoble” it with their presence in the illegitimate body and give false hope to their voters to legitimization and their principles. Also, in addition to responsibility for the annexation of Crimea, which the authorities delegate to all voters, these people take on additional responsibility for those decisions that will be made by the new composition of the State Duma.

There is no certainty that the international community recognizes the current elections to the State Duma as legal, that interstate bodies, parliamentary assemblies, such as PACE or OSCE, will provide an opportunity to delegate such a state Duma of their representatives for subsequent political work in them.

Of course, the thoughtless and adventurous foreign policy of the Russian authorities, as well as the desire to remove the responsibility from President Putin for the annexation of Crimea and shift it, through elections, to Russian citizens, will only contribute to the further isolation of the country, the deterioration of the economic situation of citizens and the further infringement of their rights and freedoms.

One of the most affected by the actions of the Russian authorities of the population, whose rights and freedoms are systematically infringed, the indigenous people of Crimea - Crimean Tatars have already made their moral choice, and back in 2014, when they opposed the illegal actions of the Russian authorities and Crimean collaborators. And now the vast majority of Crimean Tatars are not going to participate in illegal elections in the Crimea, they announced the Boycot election.

Now the time has come when everyone should decide whether he is ready to become an accomplice in the annexation of Crimea, whether he is ready to share this responsibility with President Putin and Russian power, or consciously refuses such a “generous” proposal. The moment has come when everyone should make a moral choice between maintaining the illusion of democracy in the authoritarian system and “non -participation in lies”, when there is no more space with conscience.

I made my choice.

Photo: Artem Korotaev / TASS

The original text is published on the website "Echo of Moscow"