Everyone knows how elections are rigged on voting day. But here is an excellent illustration of the fact that falsification and fraud begin much earlier, when election commissions weed out undesirable candidates. Here is an example from Moscow’s Lomonosovsky District. On Friday, the election commission removed two municipal candidates from the ballot — Pyotr Miloserdov and Konstantin Kolesnichenko. To gain the right to run for municipal deputy, you do not need to collect that many signatures — about 50. Not that hard, right? Except that the commission always has a handwriting expert on hand who, whenever necessary, will promptly declare that one voter’s signature was actually written by someone else. The handwriting expert is a nice 23-year-old young woman. She rejected one signature because it had been entered by a 75-year-old person, and the commission, together with the expert, decided that the date did not say January 10, but — because of the shaky handwriting of an elderly person — “January zero.” No amount of explanation that the person may be elderly but is by no means senile, and that there is no such thing as January zero, produced any reaction from the commission. After this “examination,” Miloserdov was left with 41 valid signatures instead of the required 43, and Kolesnichenko with 42 instead of 43. This is how the decision to remove the candidates was made. Hidden-camera footage. Look at the faces of these ladies. They — not the people — are the real source of power in the Russian Federation. They, together with their bosses in the prefecture and Moscow City Hall, have arrogated to themselves the right to decide who may run for office and who may not.
http://youtu.be/nuBKl2rOYQA How familiar to all of us is this universal formula of the Crooks and Thieves (a common opposition nickname for Russia’s ruling establishment): let’s stop the discussion and continue with the agenda. The nasty little man in glasses is named Igor Anatolyevich Yurikov. He works as chief of staff of the Lomonosovsky District administration in Moscow and is running the process of illegally removing candidates. For him, this is purely practical: an independent deputy is an independent watchdog who would make it harder for the Crooks and Thieves to steal quietly and comfortably in Moscow’s Lomonosovsky District. Miloserdov has additional sins as well: he created an Association of Municipal Deputies independent of the Moscow authorities (here: www.amdm-msk.ru), and he is actively involved in local self-government elections in Moscow, having organized training courses for independent candidates (here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/gorod2012). Konstantin Kolesnichenko received an extra black mark because he was an active observer during the previous election on December 4, when he caught crooks and thieves red-handed in Moscow’s Ochakovo-Matveyevskoye district. Miloserdov and Kolesnichenko will appeal this lawless outrage to election commissions and the courts. Let us hope they are reinstated. The crooks fear only “public resonance” — so let’s create it. Sharing the video and information about the election commission’s tricks is encouraged. It is in our interest for Miloserdov and Kolesnichenko to be elected so they can make life difficult for I. A. Yurikov and his crooked cronies. A reminder that registration for those wishing to work as observers in the upcoming elections is open here. Update. An interesting and unexpected continuation of the story. It turns out that one of the ladies who voted to remove Miloserdov and Kolesnichenko from the ballot is a member of the YABLOKO party (a Russian liberal political party). That happens too. Mitrokhin stated that she would be expelled from the party.
That’s right, well done.