Ussuri lawlessness and “Chechen turnout” are blowing up Primorye
The elections for the governor of the Primorsky Territory, held last Sunday, were marked by a loud scandal.
Just last night, almost no one doubted that the representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Andrei Ishchenko, would celebrate his victory in the elections. And there was every reason for this.
When counting votes, the Communist Party candidate Andrei Ishchenko was in the lead almost all the time, the gap between him and the acting head of the region, United Russia nominee Andrei Tarasenko was about 8%. But already on Monday morning, when 99% of the votes were counted, Tarsenko unexpectedly overtook his opponent by two thousand votes.
Andrey Ishchenko
It is noteworthy that Nezavisimaya Gazeta even published a material under the heading “Primorye enters the red belt.” But this morning the publication reported that last night, when the issue was going to press, and after 90% of the votes counted, Ishchenko was 6% ahead of his competitor, the question arose regarding the publication of the material.
“We decided that simple arithmetic had already done everything for us - well, it’s unrealistic to change everything radically at the level of the remaining 10 percent. Moreover, a couple of hours later the author of these lines looked at the news from Vladivostok: after counting 95% of the protocols, Ishchenko scored 51,61%, Tarasenko - 45,79%. That is, the gap was still the same 6%. And then only 5% unexpectedly influenced all the results and Tarasenko wins?” the newspaper marvels.
At the same time, it is indicated that at 03 local time, when Ishchenko was still in the lead, the regional election commission unexpectedly stopped reporting data on the vote count.
Andrey Tarasenko.
In turn, Kommersant draws attention to the fact that Tarasenko wins largely thanks to the unprecedented support of residents of remote settlements, formally belonging to the urban district of Ussuriysk. Thus, the result of the United Russia candidate in this territory turned out to be much higher than the regional average: in 40 out of 114 PECs he received more than 80%, and 3 polling stations in remote villages gave him 100% of the votes.
“Kommersant’s interlocutor, close to the regional authorities, has already called such official voting results the “Ussuri count,” which proposes to put them “on par with the Chechen turnout.”
Andrei Ishchenko refused to recognize the results, called them falsified, called on his supporters to protest and went on a hunger strike.
“In the elections in Primorye, the authorities resorted to obvious deception in order to push through their candidate. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation cannot recognize the results of these elections; it must actively protest. The Left Front will definitely support it,” promised Sergei Udaltsov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation “Left Front”.
“It was not the Communist Party of the Russian Federation that was humiliated, the citizens were humiliated, Primorye was humiliated, the elections were humiliated,” Moscow political scientist Alexander Kynev, in turn, notes.
It is noteworthy that even political experts close to the Kremlin, or more precisely to its various so-called “towers,” disagreed on the Primorye elections.
“You wanted arguments against direct elections of regional heads? Presented. In full.
Nothing has changed for twenty-five years. And it won't change. It would be much more honest and pure to empower the heads of regional parliaments,” suggests Alexey Chesnakov, close to Vladislav Surkov.
Evgeniy Minchenko categorically disagrees with this proposal.
“I didn’t see a single argument in the Primorsky case against direct elections of governors. By the way, have you seen this Andrey Ishchenko? In terms of habit, he is a typical United Russia member. It’s just that there was only enough money for a mandate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation,” Minchenko objects to Chesnakov in his blog.
Oleg Matveychev also agrees with his colleague, according to whom the abolition of direct elections of governors will become a “catalyst for lawlessness.”
At the same time, political scientist Oleg Bondarenko believes that the go-ahead for falsification was received from Moscow and invites the communists to fight for power.
“The era of the Crimean consensus is over. People are no longer interested in Syria, Donbass and the Skripals, no matter how much you feed them. People are concerned about their salaries, pensions, the level of housing and communal services, transport prices and the condition of roads. This is fine. That's how it should be. At least in Europe, beloved by most of our experts (and I am no exception), this is exactly the case.
This has already been written about, but I’ll say it anyway – what are you turning our teachers into, gentlemen, election commission officials? How will they teach our children tomorrow what is reasonable, kind, and eternal, when yesterday they rewrote the numbers in the election protocols under the watchful eye of a serious person? This is a very serious deformation of consciousness, which will still bear fruit,” Bondarenko warns.
And Crimean social activist Alexander Talipov draws attention to the tension in which the party in power finds itself.
“An interesting situation in Primorye. To recognize the candidate from United Russia as the winner means to bury faith in fair elections. Not to admit means to confirm numerous violations, which should lead to the initiation of a criminal case against the government candidate. These are the things... All this awaits the Crimean Edros in a year...”, predicts Talipov.
It is still difficult to say how the coastal post-election epic will end. It seems that the final word, perhaps not public, will be with the central government.
As Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Election Commission, said, the Central Election Commission is requesting documents from Primorye and is taking a timeout until Wednesday.
“We are not just waiting for moans and exclamations at the candidates in the press, but we are waiting for their accusations to be confirmed in the form of facts. We will study everything carefully. We are taking a timeout until Wednesday to study what will come to us; we ask the participants in this election process and their representatives to hurry up so that all the facts are promptly presented to us,” Pamfilova said.
“We have all heard Pamfilova’s statements, so let’s focus on them,” said the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, in turn.
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