Sign here, please

Everybody’s talking about the (non-existent) relationship between Trump and Putin, but the real election story is somewhere else.

Open Russia, through its Open Elections project, is supporting 24 candidates in the forthcoming elections, of whom nineteen are running for the State Duma, and five for the St Petersburg Legislative Assembly.

But the process of acquiring the 15,000 signatures needed to get on the ballot paper, not to mention the many obstacles put in the candidates’ way at every turn, makes the US presidential race look like a walk in the park.

In Moscow, Maria Baronova, candidate for the Central Administrative District, needed a small army to reach her target – a total of some 3000 people underwent signature collection training. But she needed another team just to monitor the collectors.

They encountered 95 attempts to submit forged signatures for verification. Given the fact that the unscrupulous collectors were amassing around 40 signatures each, this would have meant a total of 3800 possible “toxic signatures” [candidates need to produce “clean” signatures that pass electoral rules]. And a major fraud attempt was foiled due to the integrity of a supervisor, who revealed that an entire group was planning mass forgery. Having followed the collectors, the supervisor discovered that, instead of going where he’d told them to go, they’d gone to the community liaison office of A Just Russia [Kremlin-friendly political party], and remained inside for a long time.

In St Petersburg, the administrations of several districts refused under various pretexts to green-light the signature collection pickets of three Open Russia-backed candidates, Lev Dmitriev, Daniil Ken and Sergey Kuzin [candidates and their representatives need to physically solicit signatures]. The city’s election commission claimed that the applications to hold the pickets were filed in violation of the law “On meetings, rallies, and demonstrations.” Only four out of 45 notifications were approved. In all other cases, the signature collection venues had mysteriously been given over to repair works or other events.

Vladimir Zhilkin, a Duma candidate in Tambov Region, was withdrawn from the race ostensibly due to his parallel membership of A Just Russia (which Zhilkin denies). The decision to refuse Zhilkin registration was taken by Tambov’s regional Electoral Commission, which has yet to come up with any supporting documentation. The Open Elections team have been mulling legal action against what they claim could be a case of forgery.

In Chuvashia, another Open Elections-backed candidate, Dmitry Semenov, is facing a criminal case on charges of “repeated violations of the rules on conducting public events.” As soon as Semenov puts out billboards featuring his picture, and starts holding meetings with citizens, police accuse him of violating picketing rules.

“Our lawyers are confident that the claims are unfounded, but the local power brokers are of a different opinion – two records of administrative violations in the city of Novocheboksarsk have already been filed against him, and he could now face criminal responsibility,” the Open Elections press service told Nezavisamaya Gazeta.

Meanwhile, the Open Elections team reports that regular allegations are being made to the police against Irkutsk Region candidate Olga Zhakova: “now she’s got weapons in her car,” and now “unknown individuals are forcing their way into her home…” And a social media disinformation campaign was recently unleashed against her, with headlines such as “Khodorkovsky endorses former escort for Duma elections,” alleging that Zhakova had spent time in an underground casino, where she “lay sprawled on smoky poker tables.”

In Novosibirsk Region, police initiated an administrative case against candidate Egor Savin, who told Kommersant newspaper that someone has created a fake account supporting his candidacy, and has posted illegal images. “This account has been created with the purpose of removing me from the elections,” states Savin [any administrative punishment would disbar him]. His lawyer Sergei Badamshin is certain that the police actions are illegal. “A registered candidate can be subject to administrative punishment by the courts only with the consent of the prosecutor. As far as I am aware, such consent in Savin’s case has not been obtained, which is a violation on the part of the police officers that keep chasing after him. We are talking about a planned provocation, which started right from the beginning of his campaign.”

And yet, despite this, currently, sixteen Open Russia-supported candidates have received official certification. Now we have to hope that the promises made by Ella Pamfilova, the new head of the Electoral Commission, and the country’s leaders, about holding maximally fair elections aren’t just hollow words.

Perhaps Trump should run for the State Duma.