 | | | |
| ||||
|
Sergei Mironov addresses media forum "Regions of Russia" 14 ñåíòÿáðÿ 2015 Sergei Mironov, Chairman of Party A JUST RUSSIA and the Leader of its SD faction addressed media forum "Regions of Russia" devoted to the results of Single Voting Day: Success of Party A JUST RUSSIA in the elections can be explained but not by use of some administrative resource. Although the norms of the law of public elections (which is sure not perfect) were much more observed during voting, still there were abnormalities. On September 11, the last pre-election day, I was in the Kaluga Region where I was amused to find out an utterly anti-constitutional regime still existing in naukograd (science city) Obninsk. It is Obninsk where our candidates were under such a considerable pressure that six of them had to withdraw their candidacies under the threat of dismissal, imprisonment and destruction of business. One candidate who worked at the military commissariat was dismissed. Five candidates were under pressure till the very last day of elections. A new political event "shapshism" emerged in the city thanks to Alexander Avdeyev, the city Mayor, and Vladislav Shapsha, his first deputy. Having forgotten the RF President’s objectives and not caring a straw for the Constitution, they were just making attempts to throw out our candidates (as "in good old days"). This is inadmissible. We are going to look into this matter. A criminal case will be initiated against Avdeyev and Shapsha who have forgotten about the Constitution. As for the election (in general), lack of prospects for victory of any candidate from any opposition party participating in the so-called election of governors was evident since the very beginning. Why the so-called"? Because even though they are loudly proclaiming those elections as the elections by direct vote, introduction of a municipal filter diverts them from the notion of public elections of governors. I agree with Sergei Ivanovich Neverov (Vice-Chairman of the State Duma and the Secretary of the General Council of Party United Russia – Editor’s note) who emphasized with a stress in his voice that all governors holding an interim appointment from the Russian President, whose credit of trust is extremely high, become governors. So, later on the election campaign is actually predetermined. Any Vladimir Putin’s designate has not only a huge administrative resource in his disposal as he is already performing the governor’s duties but he also has a certain ‘predicate’ because people are guided by the President’s position. That’s why we paid more attention to the legislative election in the Russian Federation subjects held in 11 regions as well as to the municipal elections. Nevertheless, I must say that two of our candidates – Oleg Nikolayev in Chuvashia and Sergei Lebedev in the Smolensk Region – won the second places in the governor’s elections, with the relevant results of 15% and 20%. After three years of our party’s failure, we drew the most serious conclusions and focused on the legislative election. For the first time, the process of preparation and holding of elections was completely restructured. Having raised the most serious problem facing our citizens, i.e. Housing and Utility Services and overhaul extortions, we created regional centers for protection of citizens’ rights. During the election campaign, we collected one million signatures of the citizens supporting our initiative to freeze for five years the overhaul extortions so that the State could "come to its senses" during these years, and firstly, in compliance with the law, fulfill its obligations by overhauling the blocks of flats, and only then overhauling might be passed on the citizens of our country. What is going on now is an absolute mismanagement and incompetence. There is being created a real "pyramid" scheme of the so-called overhaul. The centers for protection of citizens’ rights have proved their effectiveness. Many of our candidates won the single member districts where the above-mentioned centers had appeared. Everywhere in such districts our party took a steady second place after the United Russia party, well ahead of the CPRF and the LDPR. Our centers for protection of citizens’ rights have a very simple slogan: "In difficult times, we are at your side!" We saw that our address to citizens was efficient. We applied to people and helped them to solve their current issues. Moreover, we managed to return several dozens millions of rubles of communal expenses from managing companies after recalculation. It was then that we passed the vote threshold in all 11 RF subjects. In two regions we took the second place, and we were the third in six regions. We realized that the new form of work with voters is successful. I must say that we won the elections to the city dumas in 23 principal cities of the metropolitan areas of the RF subjects and in 20 of them – our candidates passed. What is more, we collected over 20% in such cities as Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod and Kostroma. In Nizhny Novgorod, a candidate to the City Duma, Chairman of the regional division of Party A Just Russia Alexander Bochkaryov set some sort of a record when he won with over 80% of votes. Our party won 70% of votes in his electoral district which means that we laid the groundwork for the Duma campaign. Drawing a general conclusion about the current electoral cycle, I’d say that Dmitry Medvedev’s idea (which he put forward during his presidential term) about liberality regarding creation of parties has not resulted in anything yet. If we have a look at the results, "Communists of Russia" had the best one – 4%, and the rest won 1,5% and 1% which means that there is already the frame of the party political system – four parliamentary political parties. No other party had even approached their results. It is necessary to consider very carefully availability of a huge number of parties that split the votes received by all other parliamentary parties. In my opinion, it is time we started thinking about further possible amendments to the legislation. Maybe, not for this cycle but, in general, this idea discredited itself, and the parties do not count on support of voters (with few exceptions). The results of these elections show once again that there should be a thoughtful, attentive approach to our legislation, and much should be changed in it. Early voting should be excluded. This time we, of course, had neither 10% nor 15% or 25% of the early voting results. The maximum was 5%. And still, early voting becomes useless once there is no voter turn-out. This is already I’d say "correction of mistakes". In general, I must say I am satisfied with the election results. I’d like to thank my party fellows and the voters who supported our candidates.
|
