Russia’s Democratic Coalition Is On The Ropes · Global Voices
Russia's opposition Democratic Coalition has been dealt blow after blow in the run up to regional elections. Images mixed by <PERSON>.
When a group of opposition parties joined forces this April, they knew their goal of introducing true political pluralism to modern Russia was a tall order. Nevertheless, the Democratic Coalition forged ahead with plans to back candidates in regional elections this fall, with an eye on the national parliamentary elections in 2016. In recent weeks, however, the Coalition's grand ambitions have collided full force with the harsh reality of politics in <PERSON>'s Russia.
On September 13, a number of regional and district elections will be held across Russia. In preparation, the Democratic Coalition organized primaries earlier this summer to chose local candidates, and opposition leaders from Moscow such as <PERSON> toured key regional cities to drum up support. As the election date draws near, however, many Coalition candidates have found themselves unable to make it onto the September ballot.
In Russia, signatures from a certain number of supporters must be collected in order for candidates to take part in regional parliamentary elections, and the signatures must be verified by the local Election Commission. The verification process involves cross-checking the signee's identity and address with the database of the regional branch of the Federal Migration Service, and any discrepancies result in disqualification. Signature collection has been the focus of the Democratic Coalition in recent weeks, but this hurdle has so far proven insurmountable for the new opposition alliance. Many of the signatures declared invalid by local officials have been scrapped for dubious reasons, the Coalition claims.
Novosibirsk
In Novosibirsk, Russia's third-largest city, the Coalition submitted about 11,700 signatures. <PERSON> wrote online that those selected were the most perfect from a total of 17,500 signatures the Coalition had collected, and “were double checked by a graphologist, entered in databases for compliance with passport data, and a call center had telephoned almost all the signees.” On July 24, however, the regional Election Commission working group ruled that only 10,187 of the signatures were valid, leaving a total falling 470 signatures short of the required number of 10,657. <PERSON>, the Democratic Coalition’s campaign manager in Novosibirsk, detailed the working group's findings in a post to his website:
Написал подробно о том, что означает решение рабочей группы избиркома, и что мы будем делать http://t.co/TfWWwN7Wsm pic.twitter.com/f61cct8Ztb
— <PERSON> (@leonidvolkov) July 25, 2015
I have posted details about what the Election Commission working group's decision means and what we will do next
After receiving the Election Commission's ruling, <PERSON>'s campaign team in Novosibirsk undertook a 30-hour marathon session to review all the signatures that had been deemed invalid. They found that in many cases Election Commission employees had introduced typographical errors themselves when entering the signee's information into a computer so that it could be cross-checked with the Federal Migration Service database. 384
They also asserted that the Federal Migration Service database contained outdated information, thus explaining the discrepancies that resulted in disqualification in many cases. The graphic below details the Coalition's findings:
“The Election Commission working group declared 1487 signatures to be invalid. The results after correcting their mistakes: 615 invalid signatures. 1065 valid signatures.” Graphic labels (top to bottom): “Mistakes in checking. Typographical entry errors. Out-of-date FMS data. Mistakes by FMS. Invalid signatures. Under question. Lack of information. Duplicates.”
<PERSON>'s team then met with representatives of the Novosibirsk Election Commission on July 27 to present these findings. An official from the regional branch of the Federal Migration Service in attendance dismissed their claims, however, informing everyone that the FMS database was up-to-date and contained no mistakes, wrote <PERSON> on his blog. After being rebuffed, the Democratic Coalition representatives refused to leave the Election Commission building, and were briefly detained by police before being fined for disobeying police orders. 384