The Central Election Commission worked on the weekend – Kommersant

During the New Year holidays, the Central Election Commission (CEC) registered two candidates for the presidency of the Russian Federation, but on Tuesday their number should increase to three. Predictably, among the “advanced leaders” were nominees of parliamentary parties who do not need to collect signatures in their support. The rest of the campaign participants, who were allowed by the CEC to open election accounts, have either already started collecting signatures or are planning to start it in the near future. Frost and holidays did not stimulate the process, some candidates admit.

As expected, on January 9, the Central Election Commission will register State Duma deputy Nikolai Kharitonov as a presidential candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation: the decision has not yet been officially made, but the communist’s financial report has already been published on the commission’s website. Earlier, its chairman Ella Pamfilova explained that the CEC publishes information about candidates only after their official registration. Let us recall that representatives of five parliamentary parties (the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and New People nominated their presidential candidates, and United Russia and A Just Russia – For Truth supported the self-nomination of Vladimir Putin) should not collect voter signatures in their support, because and they receive registration before other applicants, who go by self-nomination (they need to collect 300 thousand autographs) or from non-parliamentary parties (100 thousand).

Mr. Kharitonov will become the third registered presidential candidate: the first to receive this status on January 5 were LDPR Chairman Leonid Slutsky and State Duma Vice Speaker from the New People party Vladislav Davankov. Let us remind you that in total the CEC received documents from nine party candidates and six self-nominated candidates. Already at this stage, three self-nominated candidates (Ekaterina Duntsova, Alexandra Tishchenko and Ivan Otrakovsky), as well as the leader of the Social Protection Party Vladimir Mikhailov, were rejected by the Central Election Commission due to various procedural violations.

The CEC allowed everyone else to open an election account and begin collecting signatures. Among them are three self-nominated candidates – current President Vladimir Putin, bloggers Rada of Russians and Alexander Batashev. In addition to them, candidates from non-parliamentary parties Boris Nadezhdin (Civil Initiative), Andrei Bogdanov (Russian Freedom and Justice Party), Sergei Baburin (Russian All-People’s Union), Irina Sviridova (Democratic Party) and Sergei Malinkovich (” Communists of Russia”). All of them must submit to the CEC the signatures collected in their support by 18:00 on January 31.

The pace of all applicants is still different. Thus, news about the ongoing collection of signatures for Vladimir Putin and their delivery to Moscow came from his headquarters throughout the New Year holidays. On January 8, co-chair of the headquarters Maryana Lysenko reported that “at the moment” more than 1.3 million autographs have been collected in support of the president’s self-nomination. “You know that the collection of signatures started on December 23, according to the law it will be carried out until the end of January and continues now. On December 30, volunteers began delivering the first collected documents to the central headquarters, where documents are checked, processed by the legal service, and volunteers count their number. The work will continue, and we hope that this figure will increase,” TASS reports the words of Mrs. Lysenko.

But, for example, the financial commissioner of the Russian Rada, Svetlana Korabel, told Kommersant that their headquarters is still only determining the addresses where the collection of signatures will take place. The list of locations will be announced soon, and they hope to launch the collection process there on January 9-10.

In turn, Andrei Bogdanov says that his headquarters began collecting signatures last year: now, according to preliminary data, approximately 10-20 thousand voter autographs have been collected in more than 60 regions and are being verified. The New Year holidays and frosts slowed down the process quite a bit, the politician admits. However, he hopes things will move faster once the holidays are over.

Boris Nadezhdin’s headquarters reported that his supporters started with 1 thousand signatures per day, but from next week they expect to reach a pace of 6-7 thousand autographs daily.

Meanwhile, the CEC began publishing the first financial reports and information about already registered candidates. It follows from them that communist Nikolai Kharitonov and liberal democrat Leonid Slutsky started with nothing but zeros, although it is from the moment the election account is opened that the candidate can begin his campaign (campaign must be paid exclusively from the election fund). Vladislav Davankov started with 10 million rubles – these funds were allocated by the party that nominated him, as stated in the report. Let us remind you that the maximum size of the election fund for the 2024 presidential elections is 400 million rubles, of which the candidate’s own funds can be up to 10%, and the party has the right to allocate up to 50% of the total amount.

The CEC also publishes information about the property and income of candidates over the past six years. Vladislav Davankov reported that during this time he earned almost 77 million rubles. (he has several sources of income, including Faberlic OJSC, ANO Russia – Country of Opportunities, as well as income from deposits and securities – in particular, the candidate indicated that he owns 54% of the microfinance company International Credit Center ). Mr. Davankov also owns a residential building in the Moscow region and a Mercedes Benz S450 4 Matic Maybach.

Leonid Slutsky’s income over six years is more modest – 36 million rubles: it was made up of deputy salaries and proceeds from the sale of property. But the liberal democrat is richer in real estate: he has three apartments in the Rostov region and in Moscow, two plots of land and a residential building in the Moscow region. Mr. Slutsky does not have his own car, but his wife (her income for six years is 30 million rubles) owns two Bentley Continentals, 2007 and 2016.

Anastasia Kornya, Andrey Vinokurov