On the party’s participation in agreements on political and moral principles of conducting election campaigns
Statement by YABLOKO’s Bureau
May 29, 2013
On the threashold of election campaigns regional electoral commissions have once again initiated signing an agreement on honest elections. They have been practicing such agreements since 2003.
In the Sverdlovsk region, the Electoral Commission has sent to the regional branch [of the YABLOKO party] an Agreement on the Political and Moral Principles of Conducting Election Campaigns in the Sverdlovsk Region.It is supposed that representatives of all the parties will sign the agreement in the presence of the Governor and other officials. Those who were robbed of their votes are proposed in typical Jesuistical ways of contemporary Russian politics to sign an agreement with those who stole these votes. In addition to the obligation to observe the laws and the Constitution routinely violated by both the federal and the regional authorities, the draft agreement contains a number of loyalist statements, for example, those of support of President’s actions in improving the political system, as well as the promises of abolishing any fight against elections fraud and virtual presumption of legitimacy of the elections. In addition the signatories are unlawfully required to “oppose the attempts to interfere in the internal affairs on the part of … non-profit organisations”. This represents both the blow against non-profit organisations engaged in the elections control.
The YABLOKO party has been consistently and deliberately refusing to sign such agreements on the federal level, insisting that the main thing should be observing of the legal norms and ensuring of equality among all the participants in the election. A ten-year experience has shown that those who initiated and signed these laws – electoral commissions and the United Russia party – were the main violators of the law. The Bureau of the Russian United Democratic Party YABLOKO notes that signing such farcical agreements, by regional organisations inclusive, may inflict reputational damage to the entire party.
Sergei Mitrokhin,
YABLOKO Chairman
Posted: May 29th, 2013 under Elections, Regional and Local Elections.