Today, when the final two members of the coalition of independent candidates were definitively denied registration for the Moscow City Duma elections, and when it became clear that the only challenger to United Russia’s Poltavchenko in the St. Petersburg gubernatorial election would also be barred from the ballot, it is the right moment to talk about how the registration of our "Progress Party" is going.
Or rather, about how desperately they fear it and are trying to keep it out of the electoral process.
To begin with, let me remind you that under Russian law, party registration takes place in two stages, so to speak:
We have now been registering regional branches of the "Progress Party" for four months. The process works like this: an authorized representative submits the required set of documents to the regional office of the Ministry of Justice. The office reviews the documents and either registers the branch, rejects it, or suspends consideration of the paperwork.
In theory, this looks fairly simple. To register a branch in a region, you need only 4 (four) party members. Presumably even our detractors have no doubt that we have four supporters in every region.
But when it comes to politics in Russia, it is never about the people — it is about PROPERLY PREPARED DOCUMENTS.
Registration of a branch may be suspended if the documents are prepared incorrectly — but in that case, the Ministry of Justice is required to provide a complete list of objections. After that, all deficiencies are corrected, and the regional office makes a final decision on registration — usually a positive one. The same applies to refusals: all errors are fixed, the existing set of documents is supplemented with the necessary papers, and it is sent back to the Ministry of Justice for review. At that point, the ministry might perhaps issue one more suspension — but in the end it registers the branch. At least that is the normal practice. For ordinary parties ~~that is, the ones with no electoral prospects~~.
At the moment, the "Progress Party" is registered in 13 Russian federal subjects (regions). Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice has already rejected us more than 120 times — in some regions twice or three times. The record-holder is Moscow Region, with four refusals.
In other words, the Moscow Region branch of the Ministry of Justice reviewed our document package the first time and found “errors.” We corrected them and submitted the documents again. Then suddenly the ministry spotted new inaccuracies. We corrected those too. Then the ministry found something else to nitpick. All the while, the document package itself did not change. Again and again, the ministry is effectively admitting its own professional incompetence — unable to state all its objections the first time around — simply to avoid registering the party.
Do you have any doubt that the "Progress Party" has a real, functioning branch in Moscow Region? No. And the governor of the region has no such doubts either. He knows that once we are registered, we will start crushing his United Russia cronies at the polls. That is why we have already had four refusals.
In Penza, for example, after the first suspension they issued us a second one in a row, something the Ministry of Justice itself had previously not allowed in principle. And in Moscow they told us there were no more objections and that the branch would be registered — after which they sent us a written refusal. But what is especially curious is the grounds for these refusals.
The Ministry of Justice has suddenly stopped recognizing the legality of renaming the party from "People’s Alliance" to the "Progress Party." In other words, it recognized it before — we registered 13 branches that way — and now it has suddenly stopped.
Let me remind you that after we uncovered a very large country estate belonging to Volodin, the deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Volodin’s political operatives simply renamed one of their parties "People’s Alliance". We had to hold a new party congress and rename ourselves.
In Omsk, as in other regions, a regional founding meeting was held in November. In February the party was renamed, but now the Ministry of Justice is demanding that the Omsk branch somehow travel back in time and obtain different documents bearing the name "Progress Party."
Another type of objection: the Ministry of Justice has unexpectedly banned us from submitting clarifications to previously filed documents. In other words, for four months from the start of our party’s regional registration process, we were allowed to do this, and now suddenly we are not — which means we now have to hold new meetings in the regions, prepare new paperwork, and submit everything again for registration.
There are also objections like this:
The copy itself is correct and properly certified, but because it was made from a double-sided document and submitted as such, it should instead have been placed on separate sheets. Fine, of course we will correct that; what is astonishing is that the Ministry of Justice considers this an adequate basis for refusing to register the party for the fourth time.
And here, for example, is the reason for the refusal in Samara Region:
We are being refused on the grounds that we submitted inaccurate information about our founders — that we incorrectly identified the authority that issued their passports. The Ministry of Justice ignores the fact that the information we provided is identical to what is written in the passports themselves — only the names of those authorities have changed over time.
Here, for example, is the passport of one of our founders:
And here are excerpts from the requirements for documents accepted for submission to the Ministry of Justice. Nothing more needs to be added.
Put simply, we copy the information from the passport letter for letter, and the Ministry of Justice tells us: the passport is written incorrectly.
The six months allotted to us for registration expire on August 25. Formally, this period can be extended — for example, the registration process does not end until the objections raised in the latest suspension have been resolved. Under the law "On Political Parties," the registration period is also extended for the duration of court appeals against refusals and suspensions, which could add up to another six months. Still, judging by how easily the Ministry of Justice reshuffles its own rules, there is little reason to hope for a lawful extension.
We are continuing to work. Over the next month, we plan to hold founding meetings in 45 regions, assemble new sets of documents, and submit them again. Over the past week, we were registered in two more federal subjects — proving that even under these conditions, we can still achieve our goal.
Once again, I want to thank our lawyers for their excellent and selfless work, both in Moscow and in the regions (special thanks to Dmitry Krainev). As you can see for yourselves, 120 refusals in the regions over four months means 120 applications, 120 complaints, 120 court cases, and so on.
We know the main thing: until the "Progress Party" is registered and able to take part in elections on equal terms, millions of people in Russia will have no political representation in any of the so-called "elected" bodies. That is why we will not back down.