Moscow PECs will work on the 2024 presidential elections with the same composition
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The Moscow City Election Commission (MGEC) refused the renewal of the composition of precinct election commissions announced a month ago. The election commission explains this decision by the fact that the rotation may overlap with the presidential campaign, which is scheduled to start in mid-December. The opposition parties, which have already presented candidates for the new commissions, do not see anything wrong with such a decision, although the communists are offended for the work done in vain. However, the IPCC promises to preserve the collected applications until a new consideration of the issue.
The IPCC is extending the powers of precinct election commissions (PECs) formed in August and November-December 2018 until the end of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation. This is stated in a letter from the Chairman of the IPCC, Olga Kirillova, sent to the territorial election commissions of the capital. Deputy Chairman of the IPCC Dmitry Reut confirmed on Tuesday to RIA Novosti information about the extension of powers. “The legislation has changed, and now we cannot reorganize the PECs – only after the end of the next election campaign, which will take place in March,” he said. The deputy chairman of the IPCC explained to a Kommersant correspondent that we are talking about recent amendments to the law on guarantees of electoral rights, which provide for the extension of the powers of the election commission not only during the election campaign, but also within the time frame that the law allocates for its appointment.
Let us remind you that the IPCC announced the acceptance of documents from parties and public organizations wishing to nominate candidates for the new PEC composition in early October. However, by law, if a commission’s term expires during an election campaign in which it is participating, its term of office is extended until the end of that election. Formally, the campaign for the election of the mayor of Moscow has not yet been completed – this will happen only after the IPCC submits to the Moscow City Duma a report on the receipt and expenditure of funds allocated for the elections (the law allows up to three months for this procedure; the IPCC plans to approve its report at a meeting on November 30) . As for the start of the next federal campaign, it is noted in Olga Kirillova’s letter that, according to the law on guarantees of electoral rights, it should be scheduled 110–90 days before March 17, 2024, and this period begins on November 27. As of this date, the mayoral campaign in Moscow is not yet over, the IPCC emphasizes. Proposals for candidacies submitted by parties are subject to storage until the issue of reorganizing the composition of the PECs is considered, the letter says.
A Kommersant source in one of the territorial election commissions says that the IPCC did not plan to rotate the composition of precinct commissions until December 2024 (after the elections to the Moscow City Duma), and the collection of proposals was announced at the insistence of the Central Election Commission, which required compliance with all formalities. The current composition of the commissions suits everyone, including the parties: even if rotation had occurred, in reality little would have changed, the interlocutor is sure, so there was no point in it.
Party members do not see the refusal to rotate as a big problem, although they are upset that they had to do extra work. “People filled out documents and collected certificates. How can we humanly explain to them why the decision to reassign did not happen?” — asks Moscow City Duma deputy Pavel Tarasov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation). According to him, the IPCC’s intention to update the composition of precinct commissions came as a surprise to the communists, since before this the IPCC “made it clear that there would be no re-recruitment until next fall.” And the party members urgently dealt with only these issues and, according to Mr. Tarasov, proposed candidates in all metropolitan districts, except Kurkino.
“A Just Russia – For Truth” also managed to submit nominations, Dmitry Gusev, head of the council of the Moscow branch of the party, told Kommersant: “The current composition includes our members of election commissions, and we have prepared proposals for the future composition. I think all the parties managed to submit their proposals on time.” Mr. Gusev does not comment on the change in IPCC plans. “The law allows for the extension of powers, the Moscow City Election Commission took advantage of this,” states Anna Drobot, secretary of the Moscow branch of New People. Since the new campaign is due in the spring, new commission members may not have time to get up to speed, so the decision is justified, she believes. At the same time, party members managed to prepare and submit 1.5 thousand candidates to PECs and TECs, says Ms. Drobot. “We’ll submit the documents again after the presidential elections: I don’t see anything wrong with that,” she adds. The leader of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, Maxim Kruglov, also sees nothing wrong. According to him, Yabloko members have submitted approximately 300 candidates and in any case intend to organize observation of the procedure. “The IPCC is satisfied with the current composition,” says the deputy: “They don’t want to take risks and change anything.”
Updating almost 2 thousand Moscow PECs is a huge administrative task that requires the diversion of efforts and resources from the main work, admits lawyer of the Moscow city committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Mukhamed Bidzhev. This is a difficult moment for parties too, he notes. At the same time, Mr. Bidzhev draws attention to the contradiction regarding the period for calling presidential elections between the law on guarantees of electoral rights, which the IPCC refers to in his letter, and the law on presidential elections, which limits this period to a narrower “fork” of 100–90 days and orders that this issue be resolved from December 7 to 17, when the mayoral election campaign should already be over.
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