Vladimir Putin became the first presidential candidate registered based on signatures

On Monday, the Central Election Commission (CEC) registered Vladimir Putin as a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation and presented a new slogan for its information campaign: “Together we are strong – we vote for Russia!” Mr. Putin became the fourth registered candidate and the first to receive this status based on the signatures collected in his support. But some of the campaign participants who had not yet submitted their signature sheets were criticized by the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova, for failing to notify the commission of their intentions. She was especially unhappy with ex-State Duma deputy Boris Nadezhdin, who, unlike the Central Election Commission, shared this information with the media. However, the politician immediately corrected himself and informed the Central Election Commission about his plans, his headquarters reported.

As an experienced manager of important political events, Ella Pamfilova was in no hurry to move on to the first and main issue on the agenda of the meeting on January 29. Instead, she began with a long and detailed story about the possibilities of voting using the Mobile Voter system: despite the ongoing explanatory campaign, our people are “very busy, many do not know that there is such a mechanism, and some forget,” explained the head of the Central Election Commission . Then she declared that the first stage of informing citizens by the commission had been completed and it was time to move on to the second: it would be carried out under the slogan “Together we are strong – we vote for Russia!”

“It’s important to take the campaign seriously… To show that it doesn’t matter what happens to the country! That’s why together we are strong! As a people who understand the importance of what consequences may be depending on how we conduct this campaign, how our people perceive it,” Mrs. Pamfilova demonstrated an active approach to information.

After this, it was the turn of the candidates. Three have already been registered, Ella Pamfilova reported – and at her command, photographs of Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), Vladislav Davankov (New People) and Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) appeared on the monitor. “Well, we have two more contenders: Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin from a group of voters and Sergei Aleksandrovich Malinkovich from the Communists of Russia party,” recalled the head of the Central Election Commission. Separately, she thanked Sergei Baburin (Russian All-People’s Union) and Andrei Bogdanov (Russian Freedom and Justice Party), who acted responsibly by informing the commission about when they would hand over the collected signatures.

Following this, it was logical to expect the announcement of a list of not so responsible candidates – and Mrs. Pamfilova justified the expectations, indignantly reporting that the Central Election Commission “today does not have any information” from Irina Sviridova (Democratic Party), self-nominees of the Russian Rada and Anatoly Batashev, as well as Boris Nadezhdin (“Civil Initiative”). The fact that the process of collecting signatures for Mr. Nadezhdin caused a wide public outcry did not reduce the intensity of criticism. The head of the Central Election Commission threatened that if information about the plans of the named candidates does not appear and they all come to submit signatures at the last minute (signatures must be submitted before 18:00 on January 31), then she will regard this “as a provocation”, since the process itself Receiving documents takes a significant amount of time.

We note earlier “RIA News” with reference to Boris Nadezhdin, it was reported that he would hand over signatures at 10 a.m. on January 31. Shortly after the commission meeting, the candidate himself informed the CEC that he would submit the documents on January 31 at noon.

Having scolded the laggards, the Central Election Commission finally moved on to the main issue. Commission secretary Natalya Budarina said that out of 315 thousand signatures submitted by Vladimir Putin’s headquarters, 60 thousand were checked, and 91 autographs were found to contain errors related to filling out voter data. But the remaining 314,909 signatures are enough to register a candidate. The Central Election Commission made this decision unanimously, after which Ella Pamfilova brought the co-chairman of Mr. Putin’s headquarters, Vladimir Mashkov, into the middle of the hall and solemnly presented him with his candidate’s certificate. There, in the center of the hall, the two of them staged a small impromptu photo session with the freshly filled “crust” open. “It is a great honor for me to receive and then hand over the certificate of a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation to Vladimir Vladimirovich. “I will do this in the very near future,” Mr. Mashkov promised.

Next, the CEC moved on to consider other issues on the agenda, including the registration of new proxies of Vladimir Putin, of which there are now 544. These included, in particular, TV presenter Dmitry Guberniev, singers Yulia Chicherina, Nadezhda Babkina and Diana Gurtskaya, actor Sergei Garmash , trainers brothers Edgard and Askold Zapashny, head of Gazprom Alexey Miller.

Mr. Putin’s headquarters spent about 11 million rubles on collecting signatures, as follows from the information on the replenishment and expenditure of election funds published by the Central Election Commission. According to data as of January 23, the candidate spent 7.9 million rubles on “financial support for collecting signatures.” and another 3 million – to pay for the labor of persons involved in this procedure. In total, 110.8 million rubles were spent from Vladimir Putin’s election fund, which received the maximum possible by law 400 million rubles.

Boris Nadezhdin unexpectedly took second place in terms of the amount of funds collected: his fund already has more than 66 million rubles, and 34 million have been spent.

Of these, as follows from the transcript of large transactions, at least 8.1 million rubles. went to collect signatures. In fact, this amount will be much larger, the candidate’s headquarters clarified to Kommersant: we are talking about at least several tens of millions of rubles, the process of sorting and digitizing signatures is now being completed, so not all obligations to the collectors have yet been fulfilled.

The headquarters of the blogger at the Russian Rada told Kommersant that they are preparing for a visit to the Central Election Commission, which is also scheduled for January 31. True, they still don’t know for sure whether they managed to collect 300 thousand signatures: they continue to send them and count them, but everything collected will be transferred to the Central Election Commission in any case, the staff assured. As of January 23, Ms. Russkikh’s fund had 538 thousand rubles, most of which (485 thousand) were spent on the production and distribution of propaganda materials. The costs of collecting signatures were minimal, the headquarters explained, since the volunteers worked for free. Sergei Malinkovich, who has already handed over the signatures, met 369 thousand rubles, having spent 150 thousand on collecting signatures. Anatoly Batashev’s election budget is even more modest (203 thousand rubles collected, 150 thousand spent on campaigning) and Andrei Bogdanov, who also intends to hand over the Central Election Commission received its 105 thousand signatures on Wednesday – its expenses amounted to 125 thousand rubles.

Andrey Vinokurov, Anastasia Kornya