Press Release, October 3, 2013

The Committee of civil initiatives conducted a conference on “The first single voting day: results, tendencies, perspectives”on October 3. The experts discussed the results of the regional elections and proposed their initiatives on the reform of the election legislation. Such initiatives as the abolition of the municipal filter at the gubernatorial elections, the rebound of the electoral blocks, the introduction of a deposit for non-parliamentary parties for participation in the elections, increasing of the campaign period in mass media were discussed.

YABLOKO’s representatives took part in the discussion, among them were member of YABLOKO’s Political Committee and member of Central Election Comission Elena Dubrovina, secretary of YABLOKO’s Political Committee Galina Mikhaleva, member of YABLOKO’s arbitration Ildar Fasayev, member of YABLOKO’s Regional Council in St.Petersburg Kirill Strakhov and deputy chair of the Bashkir branch of YABLOKO Artur Asafyev.

Galina Mikhaleva stated that the election legislation is closely connected with the legislation on political parties. “It’s easier to change the law on political parties than to make many amendments to the electoral law and mix the consequences of the liberalization which led to the appearance of a large amount of political parties many of which are spoilers”.

Galina Mikhaleva finds the discussion of the amendments to the electoral legislation very important. “It’s vital that the amendments should be ready at the right moment, otherwise the situation of 1993 year will happen again. At that time Russia’s political system was reshaped and the new legislation, as well as the electoral legislation, were “made on a napkin”.

According to Mikhaleva, YABLOKO can support most of the amendments proposed by the Committee of civil initiatives. “We have remarks to some of the terms as the activity of the Committee of civil initiatives is directed on all the civil society and can’t coincide with the position of a certain political party. In particular, we disagree with the term that the representatives of one political party could be on the list of candidates of another political party. This undermines the essence of the party system and is bad for the development of the party system in the future”, said Galina Mikhleva.

“For many years I’ve been talking about the problems of the electoral legislation. In the first place, it’s the excessive overregulation. Over the last 10 years the corpus of the electoral legislation increased and the articles become more and more difficult for understanding. New parties are unable to run in the elections without a group of lawyers”, said Elena Dubrovina.

According to Dubrovina, the municipal filter has become the main damaging factor in the Moscow Mayoral campaign. The situation when one of the candidates supported by the authorities actually passed the signatures to another candidate doesn’t agree with the democratic electoral process. “The legislation must be simplified. It must be distinct, clear to everybody, not only to the lawyers, but to all the members of the society”, said Dubrovina.

Kirill Strakhov, member of the Regional Council of the St.Petersburg branch of YABLOKO, told about the violation of the law at the municipal elections in St.Petersburg. The municipal elections in the number of municipal councils which lost their power were not conducted despite the judgement proceedings.

Artur Asafyev, deputy chair of the Bashkir branch of YABLOKO, mentioned the destructive role of the spoiler parties by the example of his district when the Patriots of Russia party and the Alliance of Green party received a mandate in collision with the authorities.

Member of YABLOKO’s arbitration Ildar Fasayev expressed doubts about the necessity of the abolition of the “single voting day” as he helps the party structures to help the regional and local departments with “umbrella” election campaigns.

“However, the authorities can agree to defer the spindle voting day to a a later date ( at present it’s September 8) as the low voters turnout is unfavorable for both sides. The time for the abolition of the municipal filter is ripe a long time ago. We must aim that the peculiarities of electoral legislation shouldn’t be used to prevent the “unwanted” candidates from running in the elections”, said Ilar Fasayev.