Alexei Russkikh will help the cause with a word

A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the head of the Ulyanovsk region, Alexei Russkikh, promised fellow party members that he would personally participate in the party campaign in the elections to the legislative assembly of the region. The regional election commission has already drawn attention to this statement, promising to remind officials that campaigning on their part during working hours and using their official position is prohibited by law. The commission intends to closely monitor compliance with these requirements, since in previous years cases of such agitation were noted more than once. The expert is sure that, given United Russia’s close attention to the Russian communist, the governor himself will try to comply with all the requirements of the law.

The conference of the regional branch of the Communist Party on the nomination of candidates for deputies of the legislature of the Ulyanovsk region was held on July 4. The communist governor Aleksey Russkikh, who spoke at the meeting, was not included in the party list, but, as noted on the department’s website, he told the delegates that he would “take a personal part in the campaign of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.” The local Internet resource “73online” quoted the head of the region as saying: “I plan to personally take part as much as possible, I will definitely go with the main candidates in single-seat districts and hold meetings with voters. Let’s work in that vein.”

The regional electoral committee immediately drew attention to Mr. Russkikh’s statement: “The legislation prohibits persons holding public office and civil servants from conducting election campaigning while performing their official duties and using their official position,” said Yury Andrienko, chairman of the electoral committee. “But this is possible if a person will go on vacation or will campaign outside of working hours, on his day off, while using only personal transport and equipment. We traditionally prepare a training manual for elections and remind the heads of municipalities about the rules of their behavior during the election campaign and elections, about the prohibitions that exist for them regarding campaigning. This time we will again remind the heads of all levels so that they know when and how they have the right to campaign.” Mr. Andrienko promised that the commission “will closely monitor” the implementation of the requirements of the law in terms of campaigning.

Note, according to part 7 of Art. 48 of the Law “On the Basic Guarantees of the Electoral Rights of Citizens …”, it is prohibited to conduct election campaigning for state authorities and local self-government bodies, persons holding state or elected municipal positions, state and municipal employees “in the performance of their official or official duties and (or) with using the advantages of one’s official or official position.

A source in the regional election commission told Kommersant that, according to him, on Tuesday, the Ulyanovsk commission “already received a call from the Central Election Commission, they were interested in the governor’s statement.” According to Kommersant’s interlocutor, the governor’s assistants were asked to carefully consider the speeches of the head of the region. At the same time, the source acknowledged that during previous campaigns, “heads of districts and even some regional officials often continued openly, in the performance of their official duties, to agitate for the right party.”

Opinions about the specific forms in which Aleksey Russkikh will personally take part in the Communist Party’s campaign are divided among his fellow party members and representatives of the governor’s administration. Deputy Governor for Domestic Policy Alexander Korobko (a member of United Russia) assured Kommersant that “there will be no campaigning.” “Just for example: as usual, the governor goes to a working meeting in a municipal district, and we try to have the deputies of the legislative assembly for this district take part in these working meetings, and many of them are now candidates. And if at such a meeting the governor says that in this area there is a good deputy from United Russia or from the Communist Party, then this is not propaganda. We are now “embedding” deputies from any parties at such meetings,” the vice-governor said. “It is important that party members do not let the governor down with their actions.”

The first secretary of the Ulyanovsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Alexei Kurinny told Kommersant that “I don’t know yet how the governor’s participation in the campaign will take place,” whether he will take vacations or come on weekends. “The main thing is that everything will be only within the framework of the law, without using one’s official position. Within the framework of this election campaign, we will get such an ideal variant, when all the requirements of the law will be carefully observed by us, taking into account the alignment of forces of the interested parties. Moreover, we know that everyone – both officials and United Russia – will follow this process very carefully,” Mr. Kurinny emphasized. The head of the regional committee noted, however, that “in the Ulyanovsk region, the power vertical according to the party principle does not work in relation to the governor: it, just like in the whole country, is built into the general structure, where the forming link is United Russia.”

Ulyanovsk political scientist Nikolai Vasin recalls that the former United Russia governor Sergei Morozov “did not burden himself with any restrictions on supporting his party.” “But I don’t think that Aleksei Russkikh will go and campaign for candidates from the Communist Party. I believe that, considering how much attention his opponents will pay to him, the governor will not go beyond the law. He has quite a lot of other tools to indirectly support fellow party members,” the expert says.

Sergey Titov, Ulyanovsk