Elections did without outrages – Newspaper Kommersant No. 171 (7372) of 09/16/2022

The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Thursday summed up the results of the elections held last weekend in 82 regions. During the entire campaign, not a single serious complaint requiring the intervention of the CEC was filed, and not a single loud scandal or “some kind of disgrace” occurred at the polling stations, the commission stated. There were no surprises with the results either: in all the regions where the heads were elected, candidates supported by United Russia (ER) won. In general, the party in power took more than 77% of all elected positions and mandates, and self-nominated candidates were in second place, which caused “deep satisfaction” of the CEC. The expert believes that the calmness of the 2022 elections is due to the marked passivity of the parties and the low interest from the protest movement.

As noted on CEC meeting On September 15, its chairman Ella Pamfilova, almost all lower commissions held final meetings, so there will be no significant changes that could affect the election results. This campaign had a number of differences from previous ones, Ms. Pamfilova noted. So, for the first time since 2015, there was not a single federal element in it, that is, elections were held only at the regional and local levels. At the same time, not a single complaint was received from 82 regions, the consideration of which would require a meeting of the CEC. In addition, the last campaign had a record low number of registration denials. And finally, another significant difference was the shortest possible time during which the election commissions entered into the GAS “Vybory” data on the results of voting for the heads of regions, deputies of legislative assemblies and city councils of administrative centers. About 44 million people were included in the voter lists in all electoral regions, and the average turnout in the country, according to the CEC, was about 35%.

Recall, this year the elections were held on September 9-11, and the regions determined the number of days for voting on their own. Direct elections of governors were held in 14 subjects, deputies of legislative assemblies in six subjects, and deputies of city dumas of administrative centers in 12 subjects. In the elections of governors in all regions, candidates nominated or supported by United Russia won. In the elections in regional parliaments According to party lists, United Russia improved its results compared to the 2017 elections in North Ossetia, the Penza region and Sakhalin, in the Krasnodar Territory the percentage of its support remained unchanged, while in the Saratov Region and Udmurtia it decreased.

According to the Central Election Commission, the United Russia has replaced 77.09% of all mandates and positions. In second place were self-nominated candidates (13.65%), which causes “deep satisfaction” among the CEC, Ella Pamfilova admitted.

“All the previous elections, I was spinning that they (self-nominated.— “b”) fewer resources than the parties, fewer opportunities. And we aimed our commissions to provide maximum attention and assistance to self-nominated candidates,” she explained.

In third place is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation with 3.64% of mandates, in fourth and fifth place are A Just Russia – For Truth (2.55%) and the Liberal Democratic Party (1.80%). In total, candidates from 22 parties took part in the elections, representatives of 16 of them were able to get elected.

“This is the first single day of voting, at least during the period of my leadership of the Central Election Commission, when there were no loud scandals and disgrace in the premises of the commissions during the establishment of the results,” continued Ms. Pamfilova. Excesses, according to her, were isolated. In addition, unlike the campaigns of previous years, there were no cases of illegal and aggressive behavior at the polling stations, the head of the CEC noted: “We assumed that this could happen in these elections, but, fortunately, our fears were not confirmed.”

Ella Pamfilova also said that in the elections to the state authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation and the representative bodies of their capitals, there was not a single fact of invalidating the results: this happened only at one polling station in Lyubertsy near Moscow (there were elections for the local council of deputies), where the voting results were canceled.

In general, as the head of the CEC reported, 968 ballots were invalidated throughout the country in 15 regions, which is a “microscopic 0.004%” of all issued ballots (about 25 million).

Finally, according to the results of the elections, only six dissenting opinions were received from voting members of the election commissions, and all of them were from representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. They are written according to the template and do not contain any specifics, Mrs. Pamfilova assured. They say that “the elections allegedly do not correspond to the true picture of the will of voters, since violations of the electoral legislation were committed on voting days and during the counting of votes,” she gave a summary of these documents, regarding them as isolated cases of voluntarism of individual regional politicians, not corresponding to the main line of the Communist Party. The CEC chairperson did not name the regions from which the dissenting opinions were received.

Next year, according to the Central Election Commission, direct elections of governors are planned in 20 regions, 16 campaigns for elections to regional legislative assemblies, and at least one campaign for by-elections of a State Duma deputy.

According to Mikhail Vinogradov, head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, the calmness of the past elections is due to several factors. First of all, in his opinion, most of the parties were emphatically passive. In addition, this election campaign was not a significant event for the protest movement, the expert believes. And for the Central Election Commission itself, “the topic of complaints and the struggle for cleanliness was not in the foreground,” the political scientist sums up.

Elena Rozhkova