Udmurt electoral committee was crippled by complaints – Newspaper Kommersant No. 200 (7401) dated 10/27/2022

The Central Election Commission (CEC) of Russia on Wednesday decided on the candidacy of the future chairman of the CEC of Udmurtia, recommending the former press secretary of the head of the republic and the current deputy head of his administration, Svetlana Palchik, to its new composition. The reason for the radical renewal of the leadership of the commission (a person from the administration will also come to the post of its deputy chairman) was the complaints about the work of the previous composition with the complaints of the election participants. In addition, now the CEC will be headed by people “understandable” by the head of Udmurtia, Alexander Brechalov, the expert states.

At a meeting on October 26, the CEC of the Russian Federation recommended Svetlana Palchik, deputy head of the administration of the head of the republic and former press secretary Alexander Brechalov, for appointment to the new electoral committee of Udmurtia. Traditionally, such a recommendation means that this candidacy will subsequently be presented to the position of chairman of the regional commission. Its composition, warned the head of the CEC Ella Pamfilova, will be radically updated: too many complaints have accumulated against the previous one.

“If the time had not come for the formation of a new composition of the CEC of Udmurtia, we would have had to raise the issue of the unsatisfactory work of its former composition following the results of the last campaign,” admitted Ms. Pamfilova.

According to her, the republican commission “failed to cope with the challenges, controllability was lost,” and the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation had to correct mistakes in its work.

Formally, Mrs. Palchik has been a member of the Republican Election Commission since June this year (on the recommendation of the Union of Journalists). But for the duration of the election campaign (in September, elections were held for the head and the State Council of Udmurtia), her powers in this capacity were suspended – as local media explained, in connection with a complaint from one of the candidates. However, Svetlana Palchik was not included in the leadership of the former commission, so there is “nothing to complain about,” Ella Pamfilova assured. At a meeting on Wednesday, CEC member Yevgeny Shevchenko, who is in charge of the region, introduced the future chairman of the republican commission as an “officer’s wife”, who successfully proved herself while working in the election committee of the Rostov region. Also, Veronika Lekomtseva, who recently left the post of head of the department for work with municipalities of the administration of the head of Udmurtia, was recommended to the CEC of Udmurtia.

The former composition of the commission is blamed for the poor record of complaints and the need to “spur” them to consider them.

At the last elections in Udmurtia, a kind of record was set in the number of complaints from representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (there were about 1.3 thousand in total, calculated by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation), whose candidate for the post of head of the republic, Alexander Syrov, was considered the main competitor of Alexander, who was running for a second term Brechalov. Then Mrs. Pamfilova even appealed to the leader of the Communist Party, Gennady Zyuganov, with a request to deal with the actions of members of the electoral committees from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who interfere with the work of election commissions, flooding them with documents.

Izhevsk political strategist Konstantin Trufanov sees nothing surprising in the fact that the CEC of the Russian Federation supported the inclusion of Svetlana Palchik in the new composition of the CEC of Udmurtia. “This is completely a creature of Alexander Brechalov. Obviously, after being elected for a second term, he wants the Central Election Commission of the republic to be led by people he understands. For Svetlana Palchik, this is a good personnel growth. The CEC of the Russian Federation pointed to a weak legal block in the CEC of Udmurtia, and I think that after the formation of a new composition of the commission, it will strengthen this area by attracting qualified specialists in this area, ”says the expert.

The former head of the Udmurt Central Executive Committee, Veniamin Solomennikov, was often criticized, Mr. Trufanov recalls: elections in Udmurtia were always quite competitive and with a considerable number of complaints from the participants. However, during and after the end of the recent election campaign, there were no serious claims against Mr. Solomennikov from the CEC of Russia.

“If Ella Pamfilova had a reason for criticism, then we simply do not know in detail what exactly did not suit the work of the retiring head of the Central Executive Committee of Udmurtia,” notes Konstantin Trufanov.

But the Russian Central Election Commission had no complaints about the leadership of the Chechen election committee. Its current chairman Umar Baikhanov and the secretary of the electoral committee Ela Vakhitov were recommended for the new composition of the commission. There are territories where, as in Udmurtia, a change in the composition of the election commission is required, CEC member Elmira Khaimurzina explained at the meeting, and there are territories where work is carried out professionally, responsibly and stably. “And stability, as you know, is a sign of mastery,” she concluded.

Anastasia Kornya; Mikhail Krasilnikov, Izhevsk