The deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation promised in Sevastopol that the elections to the State Duma will not turn into a Russian Maidan
Sevastopol, February 07 (PolitNavigator, Alexander Kononov) – There is no reason to fear destabilization of the socio-political situation in Russia during the State Duma elections in 2016. The elections will be open and legitimate.
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This was stated in Sevastopol by Deputy Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation Leonid Ivlev during an interregional meeting with representatives of regional branches of political parties, public organizations and election commissions of the KFO under the auspices of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation.
According to him, in case of attempts to influence the situation by unconstitutional methods, “there are law enforcement agencies,” while the task of the Central Election Commission is to ensure the legitimacy of the elections.
“We comply with the laws, we fulfill our duty, and the main thing for us is that the elections are competitive, i.e. multi-party. So that all parties and all candidates are registered. We are interested in elections being open, and open elections are elections when there are observers, when journalists are present, handing out media products, taking photographs, and transparent ballot boxes standing at polling stations. And accordingly, when they follow strictly the law, these elections become legitimate. And hence the people trust the authorities. We have no reason to fear that the elections will lead to destabilization of the situation,” Ivlev said.
At the same time, he said that 77 political parties are currently registered in Russia, which, according to him, represents a fairly wide range of socio-political opinions. One of the parties, Leonid Ivlev noted, in one of the paragraphs of its political declaration declared the illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia, which is further evidence of fairly broad freedom of speech in the country. However, he himself expressed great doubt that with such declarations in Russia one can count on any success.
At the same time, the deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation admitted that the department in its approaches will expand the platform of its activities to include social networks.
“I invited all commissions, all parties to work on social networks, and it sounded like in the 21st century, relying only on printed sources of information is not entirely rational. We believe that the election commissions will come to this and we will see social groups. Now, in certain regions, various groups are being formed during elections, from the Far East to the West. But this is still a new phenomenon. Our commissions are not yet sufficiently trained in this,” Ivlev explained.
He also said that the 2015 All-Russian Meeting of Election Commissions will be held in Sevastopol in October.