Moscow's mayor fires local city officials after hidden camera footage shows plans to fix Sunday's voting

Svetlana Antonova, a top deputy official in Moscow’s Novo-Peredelkino District, had a bad day this Saturday. Before dawn on September 9, video footage appeared on YouTube showing Antonova meeting with representatives of voting precincts throughout her district, passing them envelopes stuffed with something, referring to the parcels as “compensation” and “advance payments.” In the video, Antonova also discusses how to keep a special record of turnout by “our supporters,” and asks the precinct monitors not to start counting ballots until they’ve received word from her office. Later in the day (just hours before Moscow's municipal elections), Mayor Sergey Sobyanin fired Antonova along with her supervisor in the Novo-Peredelkino District, and replaced every voting precinct chairperson in the area. Meduza reviews the contents of this scandalous YouTube video and the reactions from Antonova and Moscow City Hall.

The footage shared on YouTube, titled “How Much Do Honest Elections Cost?,” was uploaded by an account named “Svetlana Antonova” before dawn on September 9. By daytime, the video had spread to popular neighborhood community groups on social media for Moscow’s Novo-Peredelkino and Solntsevo regions.

As far as Meduza can determine, the video edits together clips from several meetings between Svetlana Antonova (a top deputy official in Moscow’s Novo-Peredelkino District) and representatives of voting precincts throughout her district. According to the timestamps on the video, the meetings took place on September 7.

Most of the people who met with Antonova in the video are not identified, though the numbers of their precincts are indicated. According to the captions that appear throughout the video, Antonova met with representatives of polling station 2689 (whose chairperson is Elena Tarasova, corresponding to the woman who introduces herself in the video), polling stations 2696, 2673, and 2680 (apparently involving precinct chairperson Alla Koloska), and polling station 2695. Antonova’s last meeting in the footage is with Alexander Sokolov, the head of “Zhilishchnik,” a local public institution, who’s also currently running in local municipal elections as a candidate from United Russia, the country's ruling political party.

In the video, Antonova hands each voting precinct representative an envelope. In her conversation with the chairperson of polling station 2689 (at about 1:30 in the video), Antonova describes the contents of the envelope as “compensation.” Handing another envelope to the chairperson of voting station 2673, Antonova calls it “an advance” on her “salary” (just before 4:00 in the video).

When speaking to the chairperson at polling station 2673, Antonova also explained the necessity of keeping a record of votes cast by “our supporters”:

“Do you know the voter registry book? You’ve got one on site. Go open it up after this. You’ve got a list of numbers [of all voters registered at your precinct]. Under each number, you know you’ve got one person registered. I have all the books in electronic format. And all the people who are registered in our supporters’ database — each of them have the same serial numbers in my electronic records as in your book. Twice in the day, at noon and 4 p.m., I’ll need you to [call me with] the numbers of the people who came [to your precinct]. (from 3:55 to 4:35 in the video)

Sources tell Meduza that these lists of “supporters” are being drawn up in districts across the city ahead of Sunday's municipal elections. The lists reportedly include the names of people who are supposed to vote for each pro-government candidate. One political analyst working with the authorities told Meduza that this is by order of the mayor’s office.

In the same conversation, Antonova said that polling stations should only begin counting votes after they’ve received a call from her office:

“Wait for my call. When I tell you you can start counting. [Inaudible.] Hold the commission back. Because suddenly… There are commissions that I don’t even want to talk to, where the people there aren’t very good. Let them do as they see fit. [Inaudible.] The rest of my colleagues who… We have been working with you for a long time. [Inaudible.] I want to rein this in, because suddenly [the wrong candidates] could make it through where we need our five to win the districts and regions.” (from 5:00 to 5:30 in the video)

Later on in the conversation, the representative from polling station 2673 mentioned that she had ballots “in a secret place,” apparently referring to ballots already cast in support of the necessary candidates. The women apparently discussed how they could stuff these ballots into the final tally of votes.

Representative of polling station 2673: I tell Vasya or whomever, “Vasya, throw in 50 [ballots].”

Antonova: Yes.

Representative of polling station 2673: And later, when I need to get rid… I carefully remove a dozen…

Antonova: [Inaudible.] But who will do the counting? Will your people be counting? How many unused [ballots]! You’re crazy.

Representative of polling station 2673: Isn’t Rakova going to check them there?

Antonova: The unused [ballots]? Of course not.

Representative of polling station 2673: Then I’ll get the unused ones without a problem… We need to do it ten less than the registry. [Inaudible.] Do you see how I’m getting worked up about this? (from 6:45 to 7:30 in the video)

The other conversations in the video shared on YouTube are less detailed. When Antonova met with the chairperson of polling station 2689, she brought with her another woman whom Antonova called “an observer” and apparently asked to leave. Meeting with the chairperson of voting station 2680, Antonova briefly described the “bad situation” that has apparently developed ahead of this Sunday’s municipal elections. “Now our fate, and all our positions, money, and time, depend on us winning,” Antonova told the chairperson of voting station 2696.

Legally, these voting precinct commissions are not under the control of city council officials like Antonova.

Speaking to Meduza, Svetlana Antonova indirectly confirmed that it is her in the YouTube video, though she stated that the content of the footage “is not true.” “Vicious slander. A phony montage. I’m just in absolute shock. I’ll call back later,” she said.

Hours after the video leaked, the Moscow City Election Commission convened, under the leadership of Chairperson Valentina Gorbunova. According to sources close to the mayor’s office, the commission watched the YouTube video showing Antonova and concluded that she passed envelopes containing something to the precinct heads in her district. The commission then reportedly agreed to pass the evidence to police, and ordered the Novo-Peredelkino District Election Commission to meet on Saturday before 4 p.m. to discuss the matter.

Sources tell Meduza that a meeting took place at Moscow City Hall on Saturday to discuss the footage of Antonova. Vyacheslav Shulenin, deputy to Anastasia Rakova, reportedly attended the meeting. The mayor’s office later announced that Sobyanin has fired Antonova along with her supervisor in the Novo-Peredelkino District, and replaced every voting precinct chairperson in the district. In a tweet on Saturday, Sobyanin said election officials’ actions in Novo-Peredelkino would become a matter for state prosecutors, writing, “We’re trying to carry out elections that are as honest as possible, but it appears not everybody likes this.”

Since the scandal began, four other videos showing footage of Antonova meeting with election officials have appeared on the YouTube channel in question. The first video remains the most popular, with more than 90,000 views at the time of this writing.

Moscow will hold citywide municipal elections on Sunday, September 10.

Russian text by Taisiya Bekbulatova and Alexander Gorbachev, translation by Kevin Rothrock