Parliamentary parties are unlikely to appeal the results of regional elections

New People plan to appeal the results of the regional elections, a representative of the party’s press service told Vedomosti. He has so far refused to name specific regions and election campaigns where there are complaints about the voting process.

Candidates of the “New People” entered eight legislative assemblies (out of 21 where deputies were elected), and the party list headed by the ex-mayor of Yakutsk Sardana Avksentieva in the elections to the parliament of Yakutia took 2nd place (14.17%) after United Russia ( 54.36%). At the same time, Vitaly Zhukov, the “New People” candidate for the Legislative Assembly of the Trans-Baikal Territory, had questions about the voting results. In a conversation with local media, he called the results “unreal” (the party received 4.12% of the votes on the lists and did not win in a single single-mandate constituency).

Vedomosti’s interlocutor in the New People party said that in the central apparatus there are no thoughts of appealing the voting results, “only if someone locally wants to.” “But in this case, first they must agree on this with the Moscow leadership of the party. Overall, the party was satisfied with the result, and they are unlikely to want to rock the boat,” he added.

Lawyers of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (passed into 20 legislative seats) wrote several complaints about the voting process in a number of regions, Yuri Sinelshchikov, a representative of the Communist Party, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Construction, told Vedomosti. “For individual regions, for individual polling stations, complaints have already been prepared. Lawyers have done it, now politicians should take a look,” he explained.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergei Obukhov clarified to Vedomosti that proposals had been received to not recognize the elections “from a wide range” of regional branches – “from Amur to Rostov, from Ulyanovsk to Voronezh.” “The Altai Territory also heard from the leadership of the party (where the gubernatorial candidate did not pass the municipal filter. – Vedomosti),” he explained. According to Obukhov, all these proposals will be considered at the Presidium of the Central Committee next week.

The press secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, State Duma deputy Alexander Yushchenko, told Vedomosti that the decision whether to appeal the election results or not will be made at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation on September 19.

The press services of the Liberal Democratic Party (19 legislative seats) and A Just Russia – For Truth (13 legislative seats) told Vedomosti that the parties will not appeal the results of the regional elections.

“There are already decisions of commissions or court decisions on our complaints. No new processes were initiated, since there is no prospect of reviewing the result (minor violations or weak evidence base). In several cases, we canceled the results of outdoor voting and protected our candidates from opponents’ attempts to remove them,” said LDPR press secretary Alexander Dupin. The leader of A Just Russia, Sergei Mironov, stated at a press conference on September 11 that, despite all the existing problems and violations, the party recognizes the election results in all regions.

Political scientists Mikhail Vinogradov and Evgeniy Minchenko believe that the problems of these elections will not be raised at the federal level. “There was a series of regional statements – the LDPR in Transbaikalia (legislative assembly deputy Dmitry Tyuryukhanov called the last elections “the most vile and dirty” in the history of the region. – Vedomosti) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Ulyanovsk (the regional committee bureau reported that it does not recognize the results. – Vedomosti ), plus comments [кандидата в мэры Москвы от «Новых людей» Владислава] Davankova according to DEG. That is, the parties showed that they were not inactive and reacted, but without trying to be suspected of disloyalty to the vote counting system,” Vinogradov said.

However, State Duma deputy, first secretary of the regional committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in Ulyanovsk Alexei Kurinny said that the party did not recognize the results. But “appeal [их] it’s useless in court, we’ve already tried it,” he added.

Minchenko believes that the key topic ahead of the presidential elections scheduled for March 2024 is the legitimacy of the political process. “Moreover, even where the opposition is upset, they all have some consolation prizes, they have their own achievements. The results of these same communists as a whole have fallen, there are problem regions, but nevertheless they have retained [губернаторов Андрея] Klychkova and [Валентина] Konovalova [в Орловской области и Хакасии соответственно]. The LDPR is generally happy. “A Just Russia” has themselves to blame, I think they understand this very well. The “New People” have breakthrough points like Yakutia. Everyone understands that the key campaign is the presidential election campaign,” he said.

Since the beginning of the election campaign, the Russian Central Election Commission has received 2,362 written complaints, including 580 about violations on voting days, the head of the commission, Ella Pamfilova, said on September 13. According to her, 24 of them concerned coercion to vote, another four were complaints about coercion to vote for a certain candidate. “Most of these requests are from the Ivanovo region <...> 102 requests. Moreover, of these 102 appeals, 95 were written by one person, i.e. one applicant, he represents the Communist Party of the Russian Federation <...> They [обращения] were photographs of low quality appeals and complaints submitted to the PEC by various representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the Ivanovo region,” Pamfilova said. According to Pamfilova, 100 written appeals came from Moscow, 62 from the Volgograd region, 54 from the Moscow region, 50 from the Rostov region.