Carousel

There are various ways of getting the “right” result in a Russian election. As we saw in yesterday’s Duma election.

The temperature in St Petersburg was 11°. Given the weather, and the fact that during weekends at the end of September, many Russians are still at their dachas, picking the last of the fruit and vegetables, it’s hardly surprising that the turnout in the city was only just over 16% – exactly as the Kremlin had intended.

Support for United Russia, the “ruling party,” had fallen away considerably in the run up to the election, but the results nevertheless show that the election was a resounding success for President Putin and the party (of which he is still not a member). How can this be? Well, there are various ways of ensuring you get the “right” result: stuffing the ballot boxes (You Tube has any number of videos showing that taking place) or bussing in voters from other constituencies (where they have already voted) and giving them “extra” voting papers. Bussing people in is called a  “carousel” in Russian – what goes around, comes around …

In one Petersburg constituency, a local journalist managed to get the necessary mark put in his passport, indicating that he was a “carousel” voter. Even though his passport showed he was registered to vote in another constituency, he was given four extra voting papers, for which he signed the name he was told to use. He then revealed who he was and what he had done: the police were sent for and he, rather than the person who had given him the extra papers, was carted off to the police station.

Similar goings-on were recorded in other parts of St Petersburg (and throughout Russia …). In the north of the city, a message was posted in a chat room of a popular student portal:

“Dear friends! We’ve all heard about the upcoming elections. Many of you may be completely indifferent as to who gets your vote and many will not vote at all. If you’re hungry and badly dressed, or would simply like a bit of extra money, then all you have to do is vote for the person we tell you to, and the money will be in your pocket by morning. Meet up at X… by 9 on voting day.”

Intrigued, our correspondent went to the meeting place early on Sunday morning. He writes: “Initially there was nothing at all superstitious going on: people going about their business, others selling fruit and vegetables. I was just about to leave when I heard someone asking ‘Where’s the voting, then?’ I saw three girls, who were obviously looking for someone. 15 minutes later they went towards the shopping centre where some ten people were standing around. I watched very carefully and saw that young men were joining the group and that the system was the same for everyone: a man in a blue anorak met each new arrival, opened his briefcase and wrote something down in a notebook.

“Then another group of young men came along. One of them made some kind of pencil mark inside people’s passports: this indicates a person has turned up to vote, so will be entitled to receive the money he was promised.

“‘Is it long to wait? It’s not exactly summer weather,’ whined one of the girls, who was wearing a light coat.

“Ten minutes later everything became clear – groups of young men started gathering by the metro station, and one could hear words like ‘vote’,  ‘polling station’ and ‘money.’ I went up to one of the men and asked tentatively, ‘Who am I to vote for? I was told it was xxx.’

“‘No, no … you’re in the wrong place,'” he said, waving me away.

“By 11 am there were about ten of these groups by the metro station, ten people in each. They weren’t only young people, but some quite elderly as well. One old lady asked why it was all taking so long and was told by a man in a leather jacket that there were no buses, so people would have to walk. She said jokingly that she’d spill the beans to the police and the TV, and the young man joked back, ‘But who’d believe you!’

“It was getting colder and there was a wind, but it didn’t stop me hearing the same figure, 500 roubles [$7.63], on everyone’s lips. The coordinator herself told me that she would receive 500 roubles for everyone who came and voted, so that gives one an idea of the financial investment in this operation. The only thing that was not clear was which candidate the people were to vote for.

“Meanwhile, the ‘carousel’ was swinging into action. A hundred or so people went off in the direction of the voting station, but then came to a standstill. I saw a bus, full of people, but not going anywhere. At 12.20 the police turned up in force, the OMON special task force. They took some people off the bus and these people dispersed like an autumn mist. The bus driver told the police he was taking people to the Hermitage, but it didn’t sound very convincing.

“Seeing that nothing was happening, I told one of the policemen that a ‘carousel’ was being organised, and that one of the people was the presumed coordinator.

“‘To tell the truth, I’m not very good with these terms,’ confessed the policeman. “Could you explain?” So I gave him a full explanation.

“We were taken to a police station, where I had to make a statement. I gathered that the coordinator had been arrested. But the voters never had discovered the names of the candidates they were supposed to have been voting for.”

And this is how you win elections in the city where the president was born and brought up; and with the added help of the City Electoral Commission, which has today announced that the Duma elections took place “without incident” in St Petersburg.