Analytical Report No.2. Nomination and Registration of Candidates, Local Elections on September 13, 2015, Russian Federation

Golos conducts a long-term election observation of the local elections scheduled in the Russian Federation for September 13, 2015. Golos is monitoring the regional and municipal election campaigns in 21 regions. In addition, Golos analyses information from other regions by using the "Map of Violations,” an information resource available at www.kartanarusheniy.org.

1. Executive Summary

As part of this study, the following characteristics and patterns were determined to be typical for the stage of nominating candidates and party lists in the observed regional and local election campaigns for September 13, 2015:

• Insufficient information transparency and insufficient service ability of election commissions;
• Discriminatory signature collection in support of candidate nominations;
• Campaigning before the start of the official nomination process and under the guise of informing the public about the official candidates’ performance;
• Unequal access to the media and negative campaigning.

The work of a number of election commissions that organize regional and local elections contains serious flaws in terms of transparency and ensuring proper nomination of candidates and party lists.

Signature collection in support of nominations for different elections is clearly discriminatory, making the elections non-competitive and casting doubt on their legitimacy. Moreover, this issue concerns signature collection from deputies for the municipal elections of regional governors as well as from general voters in elections for regional and municipal representative bodies.

Observed election campaigns, in fact, often go beyond election campaign protocols regulated by the election legislation. Campaigning in support of the administrations’ candidates and the party in power, “United Russia,” is often presented as objective news coverage of the candidates’ official performance. Such campaigning often involves the use of service or employment status advantages and entails skewed media coverage in favor of certain candidates and political parties.

Negative campaigning against independent candidates and opposition parties exacerbates the issue of unequal access to media outlets.

Read the full version – Analytical Report No.2 on Nomination and Registration of Candidates on September 13, 2015 Russian Federation (PDF, 252 KB)