Everyone to the referendum!

The inevitability of Putin’s victory during the first round of voting has become the main ammunition for the Kremlin’s propagandists, busily going about brainwashing voters. Russia’s main polling organizations – the Public Opinion Foundation, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, and the Levada Center – are literally chomping at the bit to please the Kremlin with bigger and better numbers. A carefully selected list of sparring partners gives the painfully tired argument “and who, if not Him” more weight.

The opponents of Putin who are making a formal bid for the presidency of this great country actually look a lot like comic personalities from Soviet cinema. The troika of Sergei Mironov, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and Gennady Zyuganov bears a close resemblance to Leonid Gaidai’s Three Soviet Stooges, and in some cases bear physical similarities as well. Meanwhile, the lone figure of Mikhail Prokhorov smacks of the lanky provincial nobility. In fact, Putin’s hysterical electoral campaign seems to imply that Putin sees his relationship with Russia as a dilemma reminiscent of Gaidai’s classic comedy about kidnapping a woman in hopes of marrying her: “Either I bring her to get the marriage certificate signed, or she brings me to the prosecutor.”

Of course, it’s hard to argue with the logic of those who, for aesthetic reasons, say we should “cross out” all the names on our ballots. But here we need to consider that the Central Electoral Commission might count any ballots marked like this – “against all” – as spoiled, and not count them as part of the overall number of votes cast.

Therefore, before we attempt to solve the Kremlin’s puzzle, let’s review the raw data:

1. The March 4 election will not be legitimate, since each stage of this most important political process, from the passing of electoral legislation to the opportunities for registered candidates to carry out full-fledged campaigns, involved rude violations that infringed upon the constitutional rights of Russian citizens.

2. The ideological basis of the protest movement consists of the demands set forth in the resolutions taken on Bolotnaya Square and on Sakharov Prospect. Among those, one of the conditions for normalizing political life in the country is listed as an early presidential election, carried out according to new regulations that actually correspond to the Russian constitution.

3. Regardless of what results Churov’s electoral commission announces on the night of March 4, we need to continue the fight to hold early presidential and parliamentary elections. Even if we imagine for a second that the winner’s last name is more than five letters long, this does not in principle change anything in regards to our demands to provide Russian citizens with the right to choose a legitimate government through free and fair elections.

Following this logic, we’d ought to look at the March 4 election as an opportunity for us once and for all to delegitimize the Putin regime – and, correspondingly, as an opportunity to mobilize a significant number of non-apathetic Russian citizens to come out to mass protests. Therefore, it doesn’t make any difference who we vote for, as long as we vote against Putin.

There’s no need to torment yourself with redundant doubts – we will not be participating in a real presidential election on March 4. On this day we will be holding a de-facto referendum in expressing our distrust of Vladimir Putin, and a high voter turnout could quite possibly upset all the calculations by the Kremlin’s political spin doctors. And the four boxes across from the names that the Kremlin’s will has allowed to be on that list – these are just four ways that you can say no to the swindlers and thieves who have usurped power in Russia.

“We’re currently formulating a suit in this regard,” Grigory Yavlinsky told journalists on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Yavlinsky received an official notice from the commission (TsIK) that he would not be allowed to run as a presidential candidate in the upcoming March election.

According to the TsIK, about 25 percent of the signatures on Yavlinsky’s petition had been falsified, well above the 5 percent permitted by Russian law. However, the party insists that the rejection was politically motivated.

On January 24, the newspaper Vedomosti reported that a source in the presidential administration said that Yavlinsky’s rejection was a “surprise” to the Kremlin. In addition, an anonymous source in the TsIK said that the number of bad signatures collected by other presidential candidates was about the same as Yavlinsky’s – this likely due to the difficulty of collecting 2 million signatures in the one-month time limit and the inability of candidates to oversee the work of all of their signature collectors.

According to political analyst Mikhail Tulsky, only 100,000 signatures were needed to run for president in 1991. In 1996 the number rose to 1 million, but candidates were given 3 months to collect them. It rose again to 2 million in 2004, with 7 percent falsified signatures allowed. Since 2007, that number dropped to 5 percent, and the length of time to collect them dropped to a month. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, who has recently successfully completed the registration process, denounced it as “dishonest” and “degrading.”

On Wednesday, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) accepted the documents required to file the request. “Commission member Elena Dubrovina gave Limonov a document confirming that the necessary documents have been submitted in the appropriate form and within the appropriate timeframe,” said Aleksandr Averin, executive committee member of Limonov’s Other Russia party.

According to Averin, the CEC should announce whether it will or not it will register Limonov on December 20 – four days before opposition activists have scheduled another mass demonstration to protest what they say are fraudulent parliamentary election results.

Generally marginalized by the Kremlin and Russia’s state-run media, Limonov was nearly prevented from gathering the proper number of signatures needed to apply for registration when a December 11 meeting of his supporters was suspiciously cancelled.

Writing on his LiveJournal, Limonov described how police had hung banners explaining that the building where the meeting was to be held was cancelled due to “urgent repairs.”

The oppositionist described the conversation between him and an officer at the scene:

Me – You are violating the law, by law we have the right [to hold this meeting]; on November 30 I submitted a written announcement to the CEC that we would be holding a meeting to launch my candidacy at precisely this address, since we paid rent and so on.
Lieutenant – The police have nothing to do with this, the property owners are making repairs… we were called in to keep order.
Me – This is a political crime… they were holding meetings in these very auditoriums yesterday evening…

The abrupt closure was eerily similar to tactics used to prevent opposition leader Garry Kasparov from running for Russian president in 2007.

Russian electoral law requires 500 signatures to be collected at a meeting of a potential candidate’s supporters in order for the candidate to be registered. Forced to collect signatures in a nearby bus, Limonov nevertheless obtained 800.

At a parliamentary hearing dedicated to legislation regulating the internet, TsIK member Maya Grishina introduced an initiative to clarify electoral legislation to fight “unlawful agitation” on social media sites such as LiveJournal, Facebook, and Twitter. The commission is asking for a separate law to govern the rules for posting “political agitation” in the blogosphere and set resources in place that would allow such agitation to be dealt with.

“Our task is to get rid of unjustified constraints and create conditions to persecute violations,” Grishina explained.

She said the most dangerous platform was LiveJournal, where the majority of comments and discussions can be freely viewed by the general public. Moreover, Grishina said, it is precisely on LiveJournal that agitation is posted on the day before elections, despite being banned by law, or that exit poll data is displayed before the last polls close.

According to Gazeta.ru, Robert Shlegel, a member of the State Duma committee on network and information politics known for his work to restrict media freedoms, did not rush to support Grishina’s idea but did say it would be discussed in the next scheduled Duma round table on mass media and internet regulation in December 2011.

Other members of the political community were less forgiving.

“This idea is stupid and impossible to implement,” said Solidarity member Ilya Yashin. “It’s impossible to force American websites (for example, Facebook) to follow Russian laws, and the internet in general is a global space.”

Head of the legal branch of the Communist Party, Vadim Solovyov, said such a law could lead to abuse. “I don’t see anything good in this proposal – people could be accused of illegal agitation for any sort of rubbish on a blog,” he said.

Regional elections took place throughout Russia on March 13, 2011. Upcoming elections for State Duma and the presidency will be held in October 2011 and March 2012, respectively.

The leaflet in question picture Sergei Mironov, who heads the party A Just Russia and is also speaker of the parliamentary Federation Council, and calls on voters to “fight against administrative power.” The Central Electoral Commission (TsIK) ruled on Wednesday that picturing Mironov violates electoral regulations that prohibit public officials from taking advantage of their official positions.

TsIK member Yevgeny Kolyushin of the Communist Party pointed out, however, that there had been complaints that the Kremlin-backed United Russia party was using pictures of President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin the same way on their own promotional posters. If A Just Russia had violated electoral regulations, then United Russia clearly did as well.

According to TsIK representative Vladimir Churov, this was not the case: United Russia had every right to use the images of the president and prime minister. United Russia member Sergei Kostenko, who holds a non-voting seat on the TsIK, explained that since neither Medvedev nor Putin were not directly identified on the posters as president or prime minister, no laws were violated.

A representative of A Just Russia argued that Mironov himself was not identified as Federation Council Speaker on the party’s leaflets, but the TsIK insisted that the phrase “administrative power” along with Mironov’s face was an indication of his post all the same. The decision was made apparently in spite of the fact that if the TsIK was correct, then A Just Russia’s leaflets would actually be implying that voters should fight against its party’s own leader, as opposed to looking to Mironov as someone who will fight against administrative authority.

Mironov, who is a long-time Putin ally, became embroiled in political scandal last month when he criticized the prime minister’s budget. A volley of colorful back-and-forth insults began to fly between A Just Russia and United Russia, and Mironov declared that he would be moving his party more towards the actual opposition. While the opposition itself had a mixed reaction to the controversy, some analysts argued that for Mironov to see criticizing Putin as politically advantageous was at least indicative that the prime minister’s famously high popularity was not as safe as it once was.

A Just Russia is not the only party facing a government crackdown in the run-up to the elections. The Sverdlovsk regional election committee has banned the opposition parties Yabloko and Just Cause from appearing on the ballot, arguing that more than half of the signatures submitted with Yabloko’s application were “unauthentic” or “invalid.”

The March 14 elections will follow regional elections last October that were fraught with accusations of gross violations that gave United Russia sweeping wins across the country. A Just Russia was among three opposition parties at the time that staged a walkout from the State Duma, protesting blatant cases of fraud that independent bloggers were able to statistically document. President Dmitri Medvedev met with party leaders in response, but insisted that although the elections were “not sterile,” they would not be annulled.

Chairman Valentin Gorbunov made the statement during a session of the electoral commission, saying that it would be worth considering creating an electoral code for the Russian Federation.

Gorbunov explained that while numerous amendments were being introduced to Russia’s current electoral legislation, the system was so flawed that any such amendments would only be band-aids to more systematic problems.

“You can’t get a Mercedes from a Moskvich,” explained Gorbunov, referencing Russia’s legendarily faulty line of domestic cars. “In order to get a Mercedes, you need to build it from scratch.”

Elections in Russia are notoriously fraudulent. Regional elections on October 11 delivered sweeping wins for the Kremlin-backed United Russia party across the country, continuing the political monopoly it has held since its conception in 2001. Observers noted massive electoral violations, much of which has been statistically documented. President Dmitri Medvedev himself admitted on multiple occasions that the elections were flawed. A recent poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center concluded that less than half of Muscovites trust the results of the elections.

Recent attempts at reforming Russia’s electoral legislation have largely fallen short. Negotiations in the State Duma to create an internal electoral monitoring committee died after two months, and statements by President Medvedev in November that the system was in need of reform have thus far garnered no tangible results.

According to the article, Vladimir Pligin, chairman of the Duma Constitutional Legislation Committee and a member of the Kremlin-backed United Russia party, stated that it would be more advisable to create such a committee under the president.

A presidential electoral monitoring committee, Pligin says, would deal with the implementation of electoral legislation. It would include representatives of the presidential administration, members of the Central Elections Commission (TsIK), and representatives from various parliamentary parties.

An anonymous source in the Kremlin confirmed to Vedomosti that the presidential committee would mainly work to implement reforms proposed by President Dmitri Medvedev in his state of the union address on November 12, in hopes of meeting his deadline of April 2010. According to TsIK member Gennady Raykov, the TsIK itself has yet to receive any instructions concerning the reforms.

In response to complaints by the Communist Party over fraudulent elections in October, State Duma representative and United Russia member Boris Gryzlov had earlier proposed that an electoral monitoring committee be created in the State Duma. After two months of negotiations, no committee was created.

A presidential committee similar to the one described by Pligin was implemented in 2000, which, according to Communist party lawyer and Duma representative Vadim Solovyov, worked effectively. However, in his opinion, a State Duma committee would serve a different purpose: not only would it be able to implement amended legislation, but it could also refer alleged violations to the TsIK and the appropriate law enforcement agencies. “Gryzlov, in his innocence,” says Solovyov, “made the proposal; but United Russia simply got scared.”

According to the survey, 44 percent of Muscovites trust the official results of elections that took place on October 11 (21 percent say they “unconditionally trust” while 23 percent say they “likely trust” the results). Other Muscovites, an equal 44 percent of those surveyed, do not trust the results (22 percent “likely do not trust” and 22 percent “unconditionally do not trust”). The remaining respondents were unsure.

Official results gave Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s leading United Russia party 66.25 percent of the vote and the five remaining parties 31.28 percent. The survey reports that therefore, even 11 percent of those who voted for United Russia themselves do not believe that the results correspond with reality.

Nevertheless, a majority 51 percent of Muscovites do not believe that new elections should be called: that “the elections took place, and need to remain as they are.” Only 10 percent insisted on a set of early elections. A recount was supported by 4 percent of those surveyed, and 9 percent supported the creation of a commission that would investigate alleged violations. Another 11 percent believe that “the opposition should transfer all facts it has about violations to the courts.”

Elections took place on October 11 in Moscow and 75 other regions of Russia for officials on various levels of government. They delivered sweeping wins for United Russia across the country, continuing the political monopoly it has held since its conception in 2001. Observers noted massive electoral violations, including ballot stuffing and multiple voting with the same absentee ballot.

In Moscow, the majority of opposition candidates had been banned from the ballot. Widespread electoral fraud quickly became evident and has been statistically documented. Numerous incontrovertible examples highlight the unabashed nature of these violations – opposition party Yabloko, for one, received no votes even at the polling station where its leader, Sergei Mitrokhin, had voted.

He also said, however, that the election results did indeed “reflect citizens’ political party preferences.”

These comments follow Medvedev’s weekend meeting with leaders both from opposition parties and parties normally loyal to the Kremlin. Despite being presented with 120 counts of electoral fraud, he stated that the election results would not be annulled. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and close Putin ally, was a surprising critic of the elections. According to Zhirinovsky, the president stated that election annulments “do not, in principle, happen anywhere in the world, and that the situation has to do with the fact that we must use the judicial process – and we are using it in full force.”

Medvedev did agree that the elections had not been ideal.

Boris Gryzlov, Chairman of the Supreme Council of Putin’s United Russia party, said that by having the meeting, Medvedev had “fulfilled his constitutional role as guarantor of the Constitution.” He proposed that anyone in disagreement over the election results turn to the courts, stressing that there should not be any “political disorder.”

Medvedev requested at the beginning of the meeting that party representatives not turn the discussion into a funeral for democracy. “I intentionally dressed darkly today, thinking that, who knows, you all might be in the mood for a funeral,” said the president.

Deputies from LDPR, A Just Russia, and the Communist party walked out of an October 14 session of the State Duma in a sign of contempt at the election results of October 11. However, after a telephone call with the president the next day, LDPR and A Just Russia agreed to return to their posts; the Communist party returned for the sake of budget discussion.

Elections took place on October 11 in Moscow and 75 other regions of Russia for officials on various levels of government. They delivered sweeping wins for United Russia across the country, continuing the political monopoly it has held since its conception in 2001. Observers noted massive electoral violations, including ballot stuffing and multiple voting with the same absentee ballot.

In Moscow, the majority of opposition candidates had been banned from the ballot. Widespread electoral fraud quickly became clear and has now been statistically documented. Numerous incontrovertible examples highlight the unabashed nature of these violations – opposition party Yabloko, for one, received no votes even at the polling station where its leader, Sergei Mitrokhin, had voted.

Nikolai Levichev, who leads the Just Russia fraction in the State Duma, said his party’s observers noticed the faulty pens in 6 polling places in the southern city of Volgograd.  Levichev showed journalists videotape from one polling center that seemed to back his assertion.

In the video, an older pensioner fumbles near the ballot box, suddenly noticing that her ballot selection has disappeared, leaving her with a blank slip.

The pensioner turns to an incredulous election worker, who uses a pen from the ballot booth to write “I don’t believe you,” on the ballot.  Several minutes later, the phrase fades from sight, much to the surprise of astonished onlookers.

A ballot count later found 285 invalid slips at the polling place, most of them blank.  A recount, conducted upon request from a local candidate from the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, was even more shocking.  Conducted on March 8th, the recount found an extra 206 votes for the United Russia party.  Levichev asserts that ballots that were initially blank now had “writing and graphical representations made with the same handwriting.”  In such a way, United Russia may have been trying to make a safety net and ensure that it received a certain percent of votes in the election, Levichev said.

Just Russia is not the first party to assert that disappearing ink was used in the recent elections.  The two other parties in Parliament, the Russian Communist Party (CPRF) and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), expressed identical concerns.  “Our observers recorded similar violations in tens of polling stations in the [Volgograd] oblast,” said Sergei Ivanov, an LDPR deputy.

Russia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC), which oversees elections, said that using invisible ink did not formally violate any laws, suggesting that the tactic was a sort of loophole.  As of yet, the Commission had not formally looked into the allegations.

CEC member Igor Borisov told Gazeta.ru that electoral law dictates that polling stations must contain a pen, but that the law does not define what the composition of the ink must be.

“Although truth be told, we understand a pen to be a means of writing, whose mark does not rub off,” he clarified.  “That is to say, for instance, it can’t be a pencil.”

Just Russia says it will consider all its options in the near future, and that it is prepared to take the matter to court.  They’re probably hoping the case won’t simply disappear.