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MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) - Russian political party activists are
challenging the most recent elections last winter to the State Duma, parliament's
lower house. A suit will reach the federal Supreme Court next week. The
Communist Party, the reform-minded YABLOKO, and Sergei
Ivanenko, Irina Khakamada, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Georgi Satarov - members
of the Liberal committee, 2008: Free Choice - are demanding the annulment
of election returns and appointment of a date for new early parliamentary
elections.
"Regional governors, town mayors, big officials and other men-of-straw
were running on party tickets, eventually to refuse to enter parliament.
That will be one of the key points of our lawsuit," Georgi Satarov, prominent
political expert and INDEM foundation president, said to Novosti.
"Our suit ushers in a legal dispute of political purport," says Sergei
Ivanenko, YABLOKO First Deputy Chairman.
Boris Nemtsov, prominent on the Free Choice committee, refused to sign
the suit. "I did it for personal reasons. I acknowledged our defeat in
the elections and chose to step down [resigning from co-presidency of
the political party, Union of Right-Wing Forces, which did not win any
seats in parliament]. To dispute the past election now means to cut a
melodramatic figure with a 'hard-luck story'. I don't like such things.
That doesn't mean I deny the election laws were broken," he told Novosti.
Liberal reform parties failed to cross the 5 per cent threshold for
parliamentary representation. Now, they have gathered on the committee,
2008: Free Choice, to talk over prospects for a bloc and joint ticket
at the nearest parliamentary election, due 2008.
See also:
Elections to the State
Duma, 2003
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