Certificates of no criminal record and foreign accounts will not be required for the primaries in the Donbass

United Russia began preparations for the elections in the new territories, taking into account their specifics. According to the head of the central executive committee of United Russia, Alexander Sidyakin (on the part of the party he is responsible for elections in the DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye regions), in preparation for the primaries in these regions, less stringent requirements will be applied to the nominees than in other regions of Russia. The party takes into account that not all the rules of formality can be observed in the current realities.

Applicants from the territories, in particular, will not be required to provide information about the closure of accounts in foreign banks, since they still exist and “objectively nothing can be done about it,” Sidyakin said in a comment. The point is that under Art. 4 of the party charter, candidates who keep funds abroad cannot participate in the preliminary voting when nominated for certain positions (deputy and governor positions do not apply to them). This provision of the charter is not accidental – the law prohibits running for elections at any level in the presence of any foreign financial instruments.

The same article of the main document of “United Russia” prohibits those who have a criminal record from participating in the primaries (this is also a copy of the law – you need to declare an outstanding criminal record). But, as Sidyakin noted, someone may not be able to “submit a certificate of no criminal record in a timely manner, since this is also tied to the Ukrainian authorities.” The party must “learn how to work with this,” United Russia noted: “But in any case, the number of people who are already interested in the preliminary vote is quite large.”

As Vedomosti wrote earlier, the nomination of candidates for the primaries will take place from March 8 to April 27, the voting itself for the primaries will take place from May 22 to 28. While it has not been decided which model will be used for voting in the primaries in the four new regions, a source in the party says, most likely it will be a “hybrid” of electronic and live voting at polling stations, including with portable ballot boxes.

According to the senator from the head of the LPR, Deputy Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Daria Lantratova, during the elections, the party will still strive to build a party system according to “general federal standards” (that is why local branches are already being created in the regions, etc.). Work on the integration of new territories should take into account the real circumstances in which the election campaign will take place, says Konstantin Kostin, head of the Civil Society Development Fund. He added that, according to his information, the legal block of the CEC of the party is completing work on the requirements for participants in the preliminary vote. “That they [требования]on the one hand, they corresponded to the norms of Russian legislation, and on the other hand, they made it as easy as possible for the election participants to go through the procedure,” Kostin added.

According to Lantratova, the vast majority of candidates will be from local staff. At the same time, she says, the party’s recognition in the region is high, but circumstances also oblige local specifics to be based on. For example, when conducting information work, it will be necessary to take into account that people lack information “about elementary things that allow them to adapt to new conditions, given that communications are intermittent.” This means, she explains, that direct agitation is now losing its meaning. That is, even campaign materials should be of an “applied nature” and help people.

During the transition period, it is unlikely that anyone will pay attention to the legal details of organizing elections, otherwise, if you act according to strict rules, no one will be elected, says political scientist Alexei Makarkin: “When the situation stabilizes, this will be abandoned and Russian norms will apply.” “In the case of new territories, of course, exceptions must be made, otherwise there will be practically no local candidates,” says political analyst Vitaly Ivanov. – Therefore, it is necessary to adjust the conditions [выборов] under the situation.

Maxim Ivanov participated in the preparation of the article