Will non-privileged parties manage to run for Election to State Duma?

by Arkady Lyubarev

PhD in Law and Biology, expert in election law; Expert of Civil Initiatives Committee. Since 2013 - co-chairman of Movement 'Golos' Board

In yesterday's post, I drew attention to the posture of the non-privileged parties[1]. The story needs to be continued as it is very likely that none of these parties will not manage to collect 200 thousand signatures and thus to secure registration.

On the one hand, under my estimation, 14 privileged parties (and even 13, if the 'Civil Force' does not awake) shall safeguard sufficient political competition - they represent the entire political spectrum (as it is in principle possible under the current regime). On the other hand, the fact that the parties, which are required to collect signatures, do not take part in the electoral race is clear evidence of inadequacy stipulated by the election law.

Our Constitutional Court prefers to have recourse to casuistry (in the neutral sense of the term). For example, the Political Parties Act would be considered unconstitutional if only one party managed to obtain registration. He ruled almost the same in respect to the signature-gathering. In other words, if it turns out that no party manages to surpass the signature threshold, it means that the legal requirements are excessive and therefore the passive suffrage of citizens is not respected.

In this regard, I would like to figure out whom to blame for the current situation: The Law, CEC or the parties themselves?

First, I would like again to outline the situation. On 17 June, the election campaign was launched.  By the moment, July 10, the campaign has been run for 23 days. During this time, only one party-list was registered and it was of the privileged party. According to my estimations, the first party-list of non-privileged party shall be registered on July 13, that is on the 26th day since the start of the campaign.

The deadline for submitting registration documents is 3 August. The election campaign lasts 47 days. In other words, more than half of the days are allotted for nomination and registration of candidates on a party-list. Therefore, only 22 days remain for the signature-gathering and verification of signature sheets.

So, let's try to figure things out. The first question is the following: what is the role of the Election Law?

I think that many will say at once: the main flaw of the law is that it stipulates the requirement to collect signatures for the majority of parties. However, I do not agree with this. It would be no good if approximately fifty dummy-parties would be eligible to stand for election. The signature-gathering itself is reasonable. Thus 200 thousand signatures for a solid party does not cause too much trouble. Of course, there could be an alternative to this, such as deposit, but it is a separate issue.

It is not all about 200 thousand signatures, but the requirements applied for collection and verification of signatures. And, in particular, the timeframe that is given for the signature-gathering.

Consequently:

1. The Law stipulates that the President shall announce the polling day 90 days prior to the election, thereby allotting not more than 45 days for signature-gathering.
2. It is provisioned that the party-list shall contain no less than 200 candidates. The requirement is absolutely excessive. In four consecutive general elections held under the mixed system, no party received more than 120 seats. A party winning the second place has never secured more than 64 seats. And if the 'United Russia', employing the traditional 'locomotives' technology is urged to nominate 200 candidates or even more, so why this excessive requirement should be imposed on other parties? Actually, numerous candidates turn into a serious encumbrance, because the certification of candidacy requires a batch of documents.
3. The number of documents to be submitted for each candidate has increased. In particular, the candidates are now required to submit data on foreign assets and transactions made in the past three years. Considering paragraphs 2 and 3, the parties have to submit piles of documents to certify the party-list.
4. The law provisions 7 days instead of 3 days as it was in 2003 for CEC to register a party-list.

And what is the role of CEC and the parties?

In response to yesterday's post, I have received a web link to the statement of 'Labour Union' leader Alexander Shershukov posted on Facebook. He stated that his party was ready for party-list registration at CEC already on July 7. However, CEC postponed it to 9 July. However, I have an impression that the party has managed to submit the documents on July 8, but it is not the point. Respectively, CEC becomes an additional threshold. Perhaps it does not have enough personnel, but that is not an excuse.

Here is the chronicle. Apparently, by 30 June, no one has tried to submit the documents, although the congresses for nominating candidates have been taking place since 21 June. On June 30, the Liberal Democratic Party submitted the documents, which held the congress on June 28, respectively it took only two days to prepare the package of documents. By now any party did not manage to challenge its pace.

On July 1 (Friday) and 4 July (Monday), no documents were submitted. Why? CEC was not accepting the documents or no one was ready to submit them?

On July 5, two parties - 'Communists of Russia' (4 days after the congress) and the party 'The Parents of the Future' (9 days after the allegedly held congress) – submitted the documents. On July 6, two more parties 'Just Russia' (9 days after the congress) and 'Great Fatherland' (8 days after the congress).

On July 7, as long as I understood, no documents were submitted. Why did CEC refuse to accept the documents submitted by the 'Labour Union'?

On July 8, according to the information posted on CEC website, the 'Patriots of Russia' has submitted the documents (7 days after the congress). The Communist Party confirmed on its website that it had submitted the documents on the same day (13 days after the congress). Probably, the 'Labour Union' has submitted the documents at the same time (17 days after the congress).

The 'United Russia' has not yet submitted its documents, though 13 days have passed since its congress.

In other words, the 'Labour Union", of course, is also the one to blame: it could have hurried up in preparing the documents. The general trend is that the parties need about a week to prepare the documents for party-list registration. Of course, the privileged parties have no need to be in a rush, but they also have no reason to delay this process.

I would like to get more detailed explanations from the parties and CEC whether the preparation of documents takes a week, whether or not it takes half a day to submit the documents and whether the party-list registration takes a week? [1]A non-privileged party – a political party that is not exempted from voters‘ signature-gathering in support of the party as the pre-condition to stand for election.