On “Single Voting Day” of 10 September 2017, elections of various levels will take place in Russia. On the occasion of these elections, EPDE publishes a series of reports written by its Russian member, the “Golos” Movement, analyzing in detail electoral problems, practices and challenges.
Municipal elections in Moscow will take place in 125 city municipalities. As expected, current campaigning is mostly taking place under the radar. Most of the election campaigning, as observed in the week before Election Day in the streets and surrounding areas of the city, is being conducted by independent and opposition candidates.
Administrative candidates rarely resort to visual outdoor campaigning and prefer to use “administrative mobilization technologies” in their campaign activities. The entire administrative machine, consisting of prefectures of administrative districts, municipal district administrations, and budget organizations, works in their favor.
It is clear that city authorities do not care about turnout in the municipal elections. Moreover, they intend to conduct the so-called “drying” (i.e. reduction) of the general turnout and mobilize the “administratively dependent” electorate. To this end, campaign meetings take place in educational institutions and other budget organizations using the advantages of official positions, thereby violating the requirements and restrictions laid out in the electoral legislation.
At the same time, the very topic of the elections is treated with silence in the media, and the election commissions that organize municipal elections are not overly zealous in informing voters about the election date. In district newspapers, there are extensive reports and information about the administrative activities of administrative candidates and current deputies of municipal assemblies. Meanwhile, in most areas the print versions of regional newspapers are no longer in circulation: they are distributed solely on the Internet.
All scandals and resonant events occurring during the elections are quickly hushed up, once again suggesting that the goal of the authorities is to have a quiet and unremarkable campaign.
