Press Release, December 10, 2013

The round table at the Central Electoral Commission “Reform of the Party System and New Requirements to Legal Regulations of Elections” was marked by a scandal. The event quite unexpectedly turned out to be closed for the press.

Only after an intervention of Leonid Ivlev, Deputy Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, representatives of YABLOKO’s Press Service were allowed to the meeting. However, video recording of the speeches was banned. This happened after YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin took the floor and promised to leave the event unless openness was ensured. “Meetings between political parties and the Central Electoral Commission should be open and transparent ,” Mitrokhin said.

Leonid Ivlev instructed to allow YABLOKO representatives to the meeting, but this order was not fulfilled. Only after his personal visit to the securities of the building one out of three persons from the Press Service were let into the building but without a camera.

In his speech at the meeting Sergei Mitrokhin noted that continuous changes of the electoral legislation led to a lower voters’ and the society’s confidence in the political system, as well as a drop of a voter turnout. All this was in the interests of one political party only – the ruling United Russia which had initiated the amendments.

“First, we had a mixed system, then there was a sharp change of the proportional system… And after that when it turned out that the proportional system did not allow the United Russia to maintain its mandates in the parliaments, they tried to return to the mixed system, but with a sharp shift towards single-mandate districts,” Sergei Mitrokhin said.

Further Sergei Mitrokhin spoke about the elections of the Moscow City Parliament (the Moscow City Duma) in 2014. He proposed to the Central Electoral Commission to appeal to the Moscow City Duma Council asking the deputies not to change the electoral system in Moscow on the threashold of the election. According to Mitrokhin, this will ensure the equality of the electoral process and prevent a situation when the United Russia will enjoy an advantage over all the other parties. “Now we are presented with a new division of electoral districts, but everyone knows that elections will not be held in accordance with such a division of precincts. Because they have not decided yet according to which system the Moscow parliamentary election will be held,” Mitrokhin noted.

Consequently, when a new division of precincts is announced, none of the political forces but for the United Russia will not be ready for this.

In addition, these changes also constitute a flagrant violation of the Constitution, as the new legislation does not contain the principle of equality of the federation subjects. In the present case, common principles are established for all subjects of the federation, except for two – Moscow and St. Petersburg, – where the parliaments instead of the mixed election (voting lists and single mandate precincts) may choose whatever they want.

YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin

See also:
YABLOKO picketed the Federation Council against the change of the electoral law
Stop changing the electoral law!