The Rodina party is not allowed to participate in the elections to the Legislative Assembly, but it will fight

The city election commission of St. Petersburg discovered a defect in the signatures of the Rodina party and did not notice one in the New People and a certain RPSU party. The decision of the GEC will most likely be appealed, was the gamble worth the candle?

The conservative party "Rodina" was admitted to the elections to the State Duma and was not admitted to the elections to the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg. The City Electoral Commission allegedly examined violations in the collection of signatures and rejected both the signature sheets themselves and the entire party list. A little earlier, with exactly the same definitions, Tatyana Bulanova, a candidate from the same party in the 7th single-mandate constituency, was denied - there, the “sharp-eyed” State Election Committee, with the help of handwriting experts, also spotted the marriage.

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Both decisions of the City Electoral Commission of St. Petersburg, naturally, will be appealed to higher authorities. By law, the decision of the city election commission can be considered by the Central Election Commission, whose head, Ella Pamfilova, announced on Monday that a special commission will be sent to the city on the Neva, which will carefully study the activities of the regional election commission.

In addition, Pamfilova openly expressed her distrust of the current governor of St. Petersburg and recalled to him his own elections in 2019, when only three candidates “reached” the finals, two of whom had no chance of being elected. At the same time, the Central Election Commission invited the St. Petersburg electoral commission to dissolve itself.

“We changed several chairmen, but “things are still there.” In fact, the governor took full responsibility for the upcoming elections. He knows perfectly well what is happening and why,” Pamfilova said on Monday.

Actually, this was a response to an appeal from the Rodina party candidate Tatyana Bulanova. The very next day it became known that she was not allowed to participate in the elections in a single-mandate constituency, and Bulanova would appeal this decision to higher authorities - that is, first the city electoral commission, then the Central Election Commission under the leadership of Pamfilova.

Today it became known that “Rodina” allegedly cannot be elected to the Legislative Assembly on a list. At the same time, local media have repeatedly written that activists and volunteers of the party carry out very noticeable, sometimes even “aggressive” work to collect signatures on the streets, and the party’s leaflets appeared earlier than all other political forces in St. Petersburg, this against the backdrop of an unspoken ban on public campaigning on billboards and hoardings.

But “New People”, noticeable at the federal level and completely “invisible” in the St. Petersburg information field, have registered with the Legislative Statistical Office. In the same way, in an unimaginable way, it was possible to completely unnoticed to collect signatures of the hitherto unknown party “RPSS”, which, as it turned out, is represented by Legislative Assembly deputy (only from a different party) Andrei Anokhin.

Against the backdrop of the Central Election Commission’s obvious irritation with the actions of Governor Beglov and the local, essentially “pocket” city election commission, it becomes clear which side Pamfilova and her special commission can take. Only officials should probably remember that violations of election legislation are a criminal offense, and the CEC has every right to involve law enforcement agencies and the prosecutor’s office in this process. Was the game worth the candle?