"Get out of the ballot!": Every twelfth lost the right to be elected

According to Novaya Gazeta, citing a report by the Golos movement, the state has suspended about 9 million people, or 8% of the total number of voters, from participating in the next elections to the State Duma.

On the eve of the September elections, analysts prepared a report "New Disenfranchised: Why are Russian citizens massively amazed in the right to be elected in the elections in 2021".

As follows from the report, in comparison with the last elections to the State Duma in 2016, the situation with the right of Russians to be elected has deteriorated significantly.

Golos notes that since the last elections there have already been two waves of restrictions on passive electoral rights.

In 2020, about 50 new compositions were added to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, depriving citizens of passive suffrage. In addition, in June 2021, additional “anti-opposition amendments” came into force, which deprive those who the authorities call “involved” in the activities of organizations that received the status of “extremist” from the right to be elected. At the same time, as practice shows, criticism of the current government and the conduct of anti-corruption investigations, which is normal in all civilized countries, are now equated with “extremism” in Russia.

“All in all, since the collapse of the USSR, this is the fourth wave of an attack on the electoral rights of citizens (the first was in 2006-2007, the second in 2012-2014),” the message says.

Restrictions have significantly reduced the political field in the country. Thus, it is now prohibited for those who have foreign citizenship or a residence permit to run for elective office in Russia; who was convicted under “extremist” articles of the Criminal Code or for committing grave and especially grave crimes under 254 and 111 offenses, respectively; has, at the time of voting, an unexpunged or outstanding conviction for 50 offenses of medium gravity.

From now on, in order to be deprived of the right to run, it is enough to be brought not even to criminal, but to administrative responsibility - for example, for the production and distribution of extremist materials. If a person has been recognized as "involved" in the activities of an extermist or terrorist organization, then he will not be able to run for at least three years after that. If he is called the "leader" of such a structure, then the term of defeat in civil rights is increased to five years.

The amendments concerning the dismissal of "extremists" from the elections were adopted in a "firefighting" order in June this year - apparently, in order to prevent the supporters of opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who launched the Smart Voting service, which brings significant discomfort to officials and the candidates they support from the "party in power".

"The blow is directed primarily against the structures and supporters of the politician Alexey Navalny, but several hundred more politically active citizens may be under attack in the near future", - analysts say.

Today, about 100 politicians have already been included in the “high risk” list of deprivation of passive suffrage. Among them are the former mayor of Yekaterinburg Yevgeny Roizman, deputies Nikolai Bondarenko, Lev Shlosberg and Maxim Reznik, political scientist Valery Solovy.

In a special risk group is Andrey Pivovarov, who is under arrest in the Krasnodar pre-trial detention center, * Andrey Pivovarov, politician Dmitry Gudkov, who left Russia under the threat of criminal prosecution, and his associate Vladimir Ryzhkov, lawyer of the Alexei Navalny Foundation Lyubov Sobol, former head of the Libertarian Party Mikhail Svetov, as well as Moscow municipal deputies Sergei Tsukasov, Konstantin Yankauskas, Moscow City Duma deputies Yevgeny Stupin, Ekaterina Engalycheva and Sergey Mitrokhin.

They have already been deprived of their passive suffrage: the former coordinator of Navalny's headquarters ** in the Arkhangelsk region, Andrei Borovikov, a suspended sentence Moscow municipal deputy Yulia Galyamina, a former deputy of the Vologda City Council Yevgeny Domozhirov, leader of the For New Socialism movement Nikolai Platoshkin, deputies of regional parliaments, communist Yury Yukhnevich from the Tyumen region and a member of the Liberal Democratic Party Anton Mirbaldaev from Mari El.

Many potential participants in the pre-election race announced threats to initiate criminal proceedings against them “for any reason” if they risk running for election.

“Maxim Reznik - house arrest. Nikolay Lyaskin - the ban on actions has been extended until winter. Ketevan Kharaidze (Mundep of the Tver region) - search and night interrogation. Parnassus ban. This is today's news about the elections to the State Duma.

It makes no sense to understand the details. Drugs, covid or just like that. Only one thing matters: no one will be allowed into the Duma, this sirloin of power, a tender underbelly, which will be guarded with all its might. Whoever is not imprisoned will be squeezed out of the country or neutralized by another newcomer.

It seems that there are no more elections and there will be no more elections under Putin. The remaining real politicians need to wish only one thing - that their names do not appear in the list in the picture. Not a complete list!

Power will not be replaced at the elections. The bloc of communists and non-party people is with us to the end. It remains to find out whose one, ”the politician Dmitry Gudkov commented on the situation.

The elections to the State Duma of the eighth convocation will be held according to a three-day scenario from September 17 to 19, 2021. In many regions, local and regional elections will be held simultaneously. The CEC promised that, unlike the scandalous practice of "approving amendments to the constitution" outside polling stations, there will be no "voting on stumps" in the elections to the State Duma. Nevertheless, observers note that the practice of a prolonged three-day voting creates the preconditions for massive fraud.

* The Prosecutor General's Office recognized the organization as "undesirable" on the territory of Russia

** The Moscow City Court recognized the organization as extremist and banned its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation