11.03.09

Head of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Vladimir Churov yesterday (5 March) reported to (Russian President) Dmitriy Medvedev on the results of the 1 March (regional) elections. The meeting, which is traditionally held in this format, got an unexpected continuation: the president considered the discussion unfinished and wished to review in more detail the candidates' complaints and instances where candidates were denied registration for the municipal elections.

The head of the CEC traditionally reports to the head of state on the results of all major election campaigns -- usually after the official tally -- and this is no more than a formality. But Dmitriy Medvedev took an informal approach to his meeting with Vladimir Churov and, in addition to an oral report, demanded to be provided with an informational and analytical briefing note on all of the municipal elections as soon as possible. This was the first time the president formulated such instructions regarding the results of an election campaign.

Members of the CEC who have already begun preparing the materials informed Kommersant that the briefing note is supposed be broken down into several sections. The president asked them to pay particular attention to analyzing complaints, refusals to register candidates, and the composition of the staffs of elected heads of administration and legislative deputies. They have been given one week to collect and summarize the information.

CEC member Yelena Dubrovina, who was given the task of collecting and analyzing information about refusals to register candidates, told Kommersant : "This was long overdue. The president's interest in the municipal elections is very timely; there simply was not time for it in the past. But the municipal elections do get completely out of hand sometimes: in some cases there are violations of basic legal standards, and refusals to register candidates are completely unfounded." According to her, there were "very many complaints" in the most recent municipal elections, and not just from the CPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) but also from the LDPR (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia), which has not usually complained in the past.

CEC member Yevgeniy Kolyushin, who is a member of the CPRF, attributed the president's interest to the fact that United Russia "flopped in certain municipalities." He believes that the analytical note is needed in order to make adjustments to current practices, and perhaps to legislation as well. "It is of course possible that they regret not introducing a regulation that would have instituted party lists in municipal elections, and now they are trying to come up with another way to bolster the party of power during the crisis," Mr. Kulyushin believes. Kommersant 's source within United Russia said that after this reaction, the party leadership's appraisal of the elections results at meetings of the Supreme Council Bureau and the General Council Presidium, which are scheduled for today, might be more restrained than the one that was offered immediately after the elections. Meanwhile, in the course of his meeting with the head of the CEC, Mr. Medvedev openly stated that the analysis of the recent elections could result in adjustments to electoral laws. "Our legislation is in the process of development, and if it needs to be amended in certain ways, this must be done boldly. Without, of course, casting doubt on its fundamental principles," he declared.

A number of proposals were presented yesterday in the Federation Council, where aspects of electoral legislation were discussed. CEC Secretary Nikolay Konkin believes that the list of documents required in order to register for elections should be reduced. "Sometimes failing to provide copies of the empty pages of one's passport constitutes grounds for refusal," he explained.

Russian Supreme Court Justice Vladimir Pirozhkov proposed reducing the amount of time that judges are given to prepare substantiated rulings on election disputes from five days to one, at the same time requiring election participants to submit cassation appeals against court rulings directly to the court, bypassing the postal service, so that legal disputes do not have to be resolved after the voting results have already been tallied.

At the same time, the round table participants believe that the president's own initiatives, which he introduced within the framework of implementing his message to the Federal Assembly, also need adjusting.

Anatoliy Lyskov, head of the Federation Council's committee on judicial and legal issues, believes that the law on new procedures for forming the upper chamber puts senatorial candidates on an unequal footing, since they may be sent to the Federation Council after regional or municipal elections. "In the first case, voters throughout the region vote for a senator, whereas in the second it is only the residents of a particular rural district," he explained, proposing that thought should be given to forming single electoral districts within constituent parts of the Russian Federation for elections to the senate. Veniamin Chirkin, chief researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of State and Law, has doubts about the draft law guaranteeing small parties representation in the State Duma. "Whoever wins 7% will get 30 seats, while those who win 5% will get one seat. This creates a problem. The main principle of electoral law is violated: one person's vote is not equal to another's," he said.

It is not clear whether these proposals will be incorporated into the text of the recommendations that the Federation Council traditionally also sends to the Presidential Staff. The original draft of the recommendations merely expresses support for Dmitriy Medvedev's initiatives to "release the democratic potential of a multi-party system."

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Source: "Kommersant"