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"Tumbled around in shit"
Novaya's columnist Boris Vishnevsky talks about why the dictatorship doesn't know how to deal with crises
medical workers have died in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (*according to the “Memory List”)
The Central Election Commission harshly criticized the elections in St. Petersburg, saying that the city was left with a birth trauma
Ella Pamfilova accused local authorities of “defiantly cynical use of administrative resources.” Experts agree with most of the criticisms addressed to the City Electoral Commission, but they are embarrassed by the selectivity with which Pamfilova criticizes the regions. “She should have tried to say that in a mosque,” observers grin, hinting at the election of Ramzan Kadyrov. Last Wednesday, for two hours, the Central Election Commission, via video link, drove around the table of the St. Petersburg election commission, accusing it of numerous violations. The flushed head of the State Inspectorate, Viktor Pankevich, who was forced to sit directly in front of the camera, carefully studied the type of wood from which his table was made. Commission member Dmitry Krasnyansky, prudently seated so as not to be seen by the camera, was rummaging through his smartphone and only once glanced sarcastically at the monitor. The Chairman of the Central Election Commission at that moment was discussing the legal possibility of canceling the election results in the 217th district, where Oksana Dmitrieva, who ran from the “Growth Party,” lost the Duma mandate to United Russia member Mikhail Romanov. They scolded the City Electoral Commission for the incident with Legislative Assembly deputy Alexey Kovalev and journalists thrown out of TEC No. 2. Right at the meeting, Kovalev yelled that he did not want to “end up on the asphalt for the third time with broken ribs,” since he had already been beaten in 2011 and 2016. The City Electoral Commission reported that the head of the bad commission No. 2, Olga Lakshina, was fired. They were also criticized for the failure to issue copies of protocols (many polling stations traditionally lacked equipment), fraud with absentee ballots (although Pamfilova herself called the situation with absentee ballots “unreasonable hysteria”), carousels, use of administrative resources, etc. But the district election commission received the most damage south-eastern single-mandate district No. 217. The Central Election Commission asked the district commission not to summarize the voting results and sent its representative Yevgeny Shevchenko to the northern capital. At the district election commission they showed him a protocol on the results in constituency No. 217, but Shevchenko (“their fingers were bent like a fan there so much that they crunched!” he was indignant) found out that the protocol was signed retroactively, which means it has no legal force. It was decided to draw up the protocol again, but before that to consider the complaints. However, members of the district election commission signed a new protocol without waiting for the complaints to be verified. Therefore, the CEC lost the right to cancel the results. Some of those present drew attention to Pamfilova’s excessive partiality on this issue: “He’s knocking out the Duma mandate for his friend.” “Oksana Genrikhovna, please testify that you and I are not friends. Romanov is propagating everywhere in the press that all your persistence is connected with some kind of friendly relations between us.The enraged federal election commission was considering punishment for the disgraced head of TEC No. 29, Timur Shokhin (the one who bent his fingers like a fan), demanding his dismissal. CEC member Boris Ebzeev was not happy with this option, since “they will only be glad that they were removed, since they will no longer tumble around in this shit.” Shokhin himself, later answering a Novaya correspondent’s question whether he was really “tumbling around in shit,” said that he does everything according to the law and he likes his work. After a two-hour discussion of the situation in St. Petersburg, the CEC decided to contact the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to conduct a comprehensive audit of all violations. But they cannot also cancel the election results in the 217th district because before the results were summed up, Dmitrieva did not receive unmotivated refusals to her complaints from TEC No. 23 - there were no such complaints. Consequently, the Central Election Commission cannot identify the polling stations about which Dmitrieva complained and which need to be recounted. It was too late for her to complain. Probably also because she signed an agreement “For clean and fair elections” a few days before the vote, claiming that she was seeing a positive signal from the authorities. “It’s a pity, we had great hopes for St. Petersburg, but, unfortunately, the birth trauma remained. The City Electoral Commission and I have developed a strange relationship. We observed a defiantly cynical use of administrative resources,” Pamfilova did not hide her frustration. United Russia member Mikhail Romanov, meanwhile, accepted congratulations. “Are you still sure that your mandate will remain with you? May I congratulate you?” – the Novaya correspondent asked. “You can congratulate. The decision was made. In accordance with the law, I was notified of my election, and the legal procedure for obtaining a mandate is underway,” he said. The young politician Romanov took into account the mistakes and did not stutter more about Ella Alexandrovna’s friendship with Oksana Genrikhovna: “I deeply respect Pamfilova’s work. She managed to achieve transparency in the elections. It's no secret that Pamfilova and Dmitrieva communicate. But the quotes regarding Ella Alexandrovna’s bias are taken out of context and do not correspond to reality.” Our interlocutor emphasized that the elections were fair and legal. “Dmitrieva won in 12 sections, I won in 200, and we had a draw in one. From the very beginning, I proposed a recount of votes in the 30 polling stations that she is contesting. Let her calm down already,” says Mikhail. – Two sites were actually abroad: in Bulgaria and Germany. Do you want to say that it was falsified there too?” Dmitrieva herself promises to fight for a Duma mandate, although it’s a sin to complain to her - they didn’t take her on the ship, but they threw her on a boat: the mandate of a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. In a conversation with Novaya, the politician said that she would not give up the mandate of the regional parliament (“I am an elected deputy and will attend all meetings”), and would not apply for the position of speaker of the Legislative Assembly, being satisfied with the post of leader of the Party of Growth faction (there are three people in it , by the way). Political analyst Sergei Shelin believes that criticism of the City Electoral Commission is fair (“the commission behaved suspiciously on election night: it was silent for a long time on the results and even on the turnout”), but “the selectivity of the claims is puzzling.” “For some reason, all the fuss is about Dmitrieva’s Duma seat, although I have questions about the striking discrepancy between exit polls and the results of the elections to the Legislative Assembly,” he argues.“I have half of Russia with friends like Oksana Genrikhovna,” suddenly came from the speakers the offended voice of an official who accused the young politician Romanov of an unworthy start to his career.
According to Shelin, St. Petersburg came under a hail of criticism also because it is a region where “Ella Alexandrovna can demonstrate her honesty and intransigence to falsification.” After all, it is not Ramzan Kadyrov she should criticize.
The City Election Commission assesses the recent defeat as a “useful conversation.” “The scope of work has been determined. We definitely won’t be bored,” summed up the head of the City Electoral Committee, Viktor Pankevich, who noted that there were significantly fewer complaints compared to previous campaigns.