In Sevastopol, the “Party of Dela” is picketing the electoral commission and will sue it
In Sevastopol, candidates of the "Delo Party" are holding a series of pickets near the building of the city election commission, protesting against the refusal to allow political forces to participate in the elections to the legislative assembly.
Representatives of the “first three” list of candidates for the Legislative Assembly spoke about the essence of the conflict situation at a press conference in Sevastopol: the leader of the “Delo Party” in Sevastopol and Crimea, businessman Igor Bersenev, first vice-president of the Sevastopol Tennis Federation Alexander Ilyin and writer Platon Besedin.
On the eve of the press conference, Alexander Ilyin went out with a single picket near the election commission, on July 20 - Platon Besedin, and on July 21, before the commission meeting on the results of checking signatures at 16:00, almost all candidates are going to picket.
At the press conference, Bersenev recalled that on July 18, after a meeting to verify the party’s signature sheets, the chairman of the Sevastopol Election Commission, Sergei Danilenko, announced that all 1722 sheets were declared invalid and the party would not be allowed to participate in the elections. “If the election commission removes the party on July 21, we will challenge its actions in court,” Bersenev said.
Confidence in the correctness of the party’s position was explained by its leading lawyer Liliya Mamasheva. She noted that the commission did not have any questions regarding the procedure for filling out the signature sheets.
“If we look at the number of “defects,” we have only 26 unreliable signatures, of which 20 were recognized as such based on the conclusion of a handwriting expert who conducted the check without using any special tools,” the lawyer pointed out.
The main complaints concerned the form of the subscription list. According to the election commission, the party had to indicate in the “header” the names of the candidates in the top three of the city list. However, this contradicts the provisions of the Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Citizens’ Electoral Rights,” Mamasheva clarified.
According to footnote 2 of Appendix 4.1 of this law, the signature list indicates the data of the first three candidates on the list only if it is divided into the so-called regional part and regional groups.
“In Article 32 of the law “On the election of deputies of the Legislative Assembly of the city of Sevastopol” we clearly see that there is no division - only an indication that the total number of candidates in the city list cannot be less than 12 and more than 24,” she emphasized.
Also, the mandatory form of the city list, approved by the Sevastopol Election Commission itself, does not imply the presence of a regional part of the list. Thus, the commission’s demands contradict federal law, concluded Liliya Mamasheva.
Obviously, the political field is being cleansed, says Platon Besedin. “I will be more harsh in my assessments, but really what is happening now is a reduction in the legitimacy of the elections that will be held in September 2019. Now we have the first real opportunity to elect Sevastopol residents to the Legislative Assembly,” he said. - “But they are being purged - after all, it’s not only our party that is being removed, let’s be honest.”
In addition to the “Delo Party”, the signature lists of other non-parliamentary parties – the “Greens” and “Rodina” - were declared invalid. When asked by journalists whether the three parties would carry out any joint actions, Igor Bersenev replied that the main thing for the “Party of Deeds” is to convey its position to the voters themselves. However, it is open to dialogue with all constructive forces, he added.
“In my opinion, parties should be assessed by their voters. Behind other party structures, even if they are not ideologically similar to us, there are also their voters, our fellow citizens, and this is the main thing,” Bersenev added.
Another question that was of keen interest to journalists was the possible connection of the party with the ex-governor of Sevastopol Dmitry Ovsyannikov. Secretary of the Federal Council of the Party Alexei Lapushkin, who was present at the press conference, also responded to this.
“I will answer directly - when the strategy for the election campaign of the Party of Dela in Sevastopol was chosen, it was decided not to blockade with anyone or enter into conflicts,” he explained. “The party has an ironclad position: elections are competition. This is not a "fight". A voter should have the opportunity to choose what he needs, to vote for the party that offers a more beneficial program for him.”
And the “Party of Deeds,” in his opinion, has an advantage - it talks about the development of production and job creation: topics that few Russian politicians think about.
“But this, in our opinion, is the main thing, because... Can you imagine an unprofitable gold mine? And I saw one like that. And this despite all the wealth of our country,” Lapushkin concluded.
As for the position of the “Party of Deeds” on the situation that developed during the elections in Sevastopol, all its representatives answered firmly: they intend to sue.
“The election commission did not present a single argument at the meeting to verify signatures in favor of its criticism of our form,” emphasized Liliya Mamasheva. “This is because there are no such arguments - the commission’s demands are absolutely illegal, and the member of the election commission who declared that our form was incorrect, as far as we know, works as a lawyer in a real estate agency. What kind of competence can we even talk about here?”
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