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gazeta.ru
March 16, 2004
Some regions spoil president's election party
Yelena Rudneva, Alia Samigullina

While having successfully fulfilled the Kremlin’s orders to make sure that incumbent Vladimir Putin won 70 percent, the electoral authorities, nonetheless, failed to cope with their principal task of ensuring a 70-percent turnout. The regions that spoiled Putin’s triumph may face sanctions.

In nearly half of all Russia’s regions voter turnout at Sunday’s presidential elections proved lower than in the 2000 elections, when it was 68.74 percent of all the eligible voters, Alexander Veshnyakov, Chairman of the Central Election Commission (TsIK) admitted on Monday. This time turnout in some areas has barely exceeded the critical 50 percent. By law, more than half of Russia's 109 million registered voters must cast ballots for the election to be valid.

In the build-up to the polls many observers and politicians suggested that the authorities would take pains to boost the turnout to 70 percent. For instance, presidential candidate Sergei Glazyev claimed that a week before the polls governors across the country held special sessions with local election officials and heads of local self-government bodies to discuss measures that would ensure a higher turnout.

At those sessions the heads of regional administrations familiarized their subordinates with a letter circulated by the territorial directorates of the presidential administration, obliging regional authorities to apply all administrative methods to ensure a voter turnout of no less than 70 percent and the same percentage of votes cast in favour of the incumbent president of Russia, Glazyev said.

Judging by the latest results of the vote count, the regions only managed to cope with the latter, more straightforward task, whereas they failed to ensure the turnout figure.

The list of regions that did not let the Kremlin down includes the North-Caucasian republics of Chechnya, where the turnout had reached 96.89 percent by 1900 on 14 March, and Kabardino-Balarkaria (87.7 percent), as well as the far-eastern Chukotka Region, with 83 percent.

86 percent of all the registered voters in North Ossetia went to the polling stations, with 91.1 per cent of the ballots cast for the incumbent. Also among the ''winners'' is Mordovia, with a voter turnout of 84.7 percent.

Voters proved far less active in Siberian and Far-Eastern regions, despite their almost 100 per cent support of the incumbent. By 1930 on Sunday the turnout amounted to 57.84 per cent, while in the 2000 elections 63.81 per cent of the registered voters cast their vote.

When the last polling stations closed in the European part of the country on Sunday, it became clear that in nearly half of Russia’s regions the turnout had only just overcome the critical barrier of 50 percent plus one vote for the election to be declared valid.

According to an Interfax report, only 50.62 percent of the registered voters in Karelia exercised their right to chose their president. In the Murmansk Region 51.39 percent turned up at the polling stations. 56.28 percent voted in Karelia. In the Pskov region the turnout amounted to 53.30 percent as of 1800 on Sunday.

Nonetheless, as early as 1600 on Sunday Russian news agencies quoted Central Election Commission chief Alexander Veshnyakov as saying that voter turnout in Russia's presidential election exceeded 50 percent, making the election valid with the polls still open.

On Monday Vladimir Putin was declared the official winner of the presidential race with 71.2 per cent of the votes cast in his favour, after 99.2 percent of the polling stations had reported their results. The turnout amounted to 64.3 percent. Putin’s closest challenger was communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov, who received 13.7 percent of the vote. He was followed by nationalist candidate Sergei Glazyev with 4.1 percent of the vote and pro-business liberal Irina Khakamada with 3.9 percent of the vote.

Oleg Malyshkin, the little-known candidate from flamboyant nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party, polled 2 percent and Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper house of parliament, who said he was running to support the incumbent, won 0.8 percent. Some 3.5 percent of the electorate cast their votes "against all" the candidates.

Putin's challengers were quick to report the first violations they had detected during the voting. The head of Sergei Glazyev’s election staff, Yana Dubeikovskaya, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station that patients at Moscow's mental hospital No 4 eligible to vote had received ballot papers with the box against Putin's name already ticked. Two patients wishing to cast their votes for other candidates were told that there were no other ballot papers.

A parallel count body set up by the election headquarters of Irina Khakamada and Glazyev has also reported on violations during the course of the election. According to observers, polling stations in Moscow had similar violations - manipulation of the lists of voters and violations related to absentee ballots; in addition, illegal campaigning had been carried out for Putin at some polling stations. A similar picture, observers said, had been observed throughout Russia.

Khakamada has expressed hope that TsIK will look into the observers' findings on violations during the election. “Alexander Veshnyakov has promised us in person that he will cooperate. We shall immediately submit material on violations to TsIK and see how the commission will react to it," Khakamada said.