‘Golos’ statement on the non-partisan election observation on the Single Election Day, 18 September

The movement advocating for the voters’ rights ‘Golos’ observes elections in accordance with the Declaration of Global Principles for Non-partisan Observation and Monitoring by Citizen Organizations (further - the Declaration) and the Code of Conduct for Non-partisan Citizen Election Observers (further - the Code), solemnly proclaimed on 3 April 2012 by the United Nations and signed by more than 160 non-partisan organizations from more than seventy countries.

Until 2016, in Russian Federation the representatives of non-partisan, independent media were entitled to carry out non-partisan election observation in full compliance with the Declaration and the Code. In 2016, the Russian Federation passed law amendments discriminating media representatives in regard to their right to be present at the polling stations, despite their professional experience and type of employment contract. As a result, a significant number of non-partisan citizen observers will not be able to exercise this right.

We regretfully must say that under the Russian Federation law citizen associations which do not nominate candidates for election are deprived of the right to non-partisan election observation, despite the fact that such rights of NGOs are enshrined in Article 14 ‘Status and Powers of National Observers’ of the Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States (Chisinau, 7 October 2002).

The Article 18 of the Declaration stipulates that in case it is impossible to obtain accreditation and access to the election-related facilities ‘the organization engaged in non-partisan election observation ... may nevertheless send a limited number of observers to collect information outside the polling stations and (or) other election facilities, or in another way to redress the experienced restrictions arising while announcing these limitations, their causes and the possible impact on their activities’.

Under such circumstances, the movement advocating for voters’ rights ‘Golos’ will send some of its representatives as party observers of any candidate or party, provided that the candidate or the party will respect the non-partisanship of our representatives and respect their political neutrality in all their election related activities (including election observation, monitoring, voter education, etc.), as well as respect their right to refrain from publicly expressing their sympathies or antipathies against any candidate, political party running for election (including reports on violations of laws, regulations and electoral rights), as set out in Art. 1 of the Code.

Any attempt forcing our representatives to actually violate the principles of non-partisanship will be considered as a violation of our terms of cooperation and result in its cessation.

We make this statement in strict accordance with the Art. 22 provisions of the Declaration, namely ‘at any time that an endorsing organization deems it necessary to depart from any terms of this Declaration or the accompanying Code of Conduct, in order to conduct non-partisan election observation in the spirit of this Declaration and to meet national conditions, that organization will explain why it is necessary to do so in its public statements ... ‘.

Formally, our solution - a derogation from paragraph 2 ‘Modes of Conduct’ provisioned in the Code, which states that an observer ‘does not represent any candidate, political party’, etc.

Thus, taking into account the above mentioned conditions of our cooperation with the parties and candidates, our observers will conduct non-partisan election observation in the spirit of the Declaration and in full compliance with the right to this derogation, literally stipulated in the Declaration for the exceptional cases.

We call on all candidates and political parties that are interested in free and fair elections, as well as respect the electoral rights of the citizens, to let us continuing our non-partisan election observation by providing as an opportunity to become election commission members in an advisory capacity or election observers on the Single Election Day scheduled for 18 September 2016.