Statement by the Presidium of the CC CPRF
The 2024 election campaign in Russia has come to an end. On September 6-8 the citizens of the country’s 83 regions voted with a hope for a decent future. We are sincerely grateful to all those who have displayed character, will and responsibility in backing the CPRF program and our candidates!
The elections were held in the conditions of the special military operation and the invasion of pro-Fascist aggressors into the territory of the Kursk Oblast. Military activities had a direct impact on the organization and the content of the electoral process. In a situation of acute external threats President Putin has repeatedly stressed the need to unite society, mobilize resources and develop cutting-edge technologies for the victory over Neo-Nazism, Banderaism and the NATO challenge. The participants in the political process in our country were entitled to expect that these calls would be heard by the United Russia party and the entire army of bureaucrats.
The CPRF prepared for the elections thoroughly and put forward its Victory Program seeking to enhance the responsibility of government to the people, to create an effective economic model, to bolster the defense capacity and protect the interests of the working people. The effectiveness of the CPRF’s approach has been confirmed by scientists and experts during the course of economic forums, by the conclusions of parliamentary deliberations at the State Duma, the results of the work of people’s enterprises and the experience of the Communists who headed up the Russian regions. We explained our approaches at our meetings with voters, through the newspapers Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya, the Krasnaya liniya (Red Line) TV channel, the regional party media outlets and social networks. The communist party at the State Duma presented an honest report on its work to the State Duma.
The CPRF takes a firm and consistent stand in the struggle against Neo-Nazism. Thousands of Communist Party and Komsomol members are fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces against Banderaists and their NATO principals. Relief supplies to the victims in Novorossiya and the Kursk Oblast continue to be gathered. 128 humanitarian convoys with food and medical supplies, cars and motorcycles, equipment and teaching aids have been dispatched to Donbas. In the Moscow area 19,000 children have been accommodated at health camps. We are determined to continue this work.
The CPRF approached the elections to the power bodies and local government bodies with the utmost sense of responsibility. We have formed a strong team, with more than 7,000 candidates taking part in elections at various levels. Among the candidates were top-notch specialists, energetic public activists and participants in the Special Military Operation. They are all true patriots of their country.
Our candidates conducted a vigorous election campaign: they met with voters, took part in debates, explained the advantages of the CPRF’s approach to the solution of pressing problems. The party’s campaign materials were vivid and substantive, addressing topical problems.
The CPRF showed itself to be an active and effective political force. However, in many regions official representatives turned out to be ill-equipped for a contest of ideas and programs, an open and honest debate. Like in former years, they chose to “win” through administrative manipulations and dirty technologies. For the ruling party external challenges often served not as a stimulus for a constructive dialogue, but as a cover for machinations. The shady practices of the 1990s were widely used.
As a result of these disreputable methods, a sizeable section of the electorate has expressed disappointment with the institution of elections. People mistrust the veracity of such expression of the will and the positive changes through voting. We see the wish to take part in elections waning before our eyes. Rigged results are not taken seriously, just like United Russia’s claims of “triumph.”
The practice of banning our candidates from taking part in elections has reached an unprecedented scale. In St.Petersburg our candidate Roman Kononenko was denied registration. The ”special operation” to re-elect Alexander Belgov as the governor of St.Petersburg was marked by an extremely low turnout. In the absence of real rivals, his showing is the lowest in Russia. The difference between the numbers of voters in the gubernatorial and municipal elections was appalling. In practice such a gap is impossible. The people’s patriotic forces of Russia cannot accept the results of such “elections” in the country’s cultural capital.
Nor can we recognize the results of gubernatorial elections from which the ruling party, in a cowardly fashion, excluded the CPRF candidates Pyotr Bukach in the Republic of Altai, Maksim Shipitsyn in Transbaikal Area, Sergey Tokarev in the Lipetsk Oblast, Vladimir Gudomarov in the Orenburg Oblast, which was recently hit by an unprecedented flood. Hundreds of our comrades were prevented from taking part in the municipal elections in the Leningrad Oblast and in Petersburg. Three CPRF candidates were disqualified in Moscow under specious pretexts. In the Irkutsk Oblast potential winners were banned from elections of mayors of Bratsk, Tulun and Ust-Orda. Banning of our comrades from elections is an abhorrent trend. More than half a thousand CPRF candidates have been banned at the regional and local levels.
It is obvious that people mistrust the skewed and opaque electoral system. Even in spite of the three-day election, electronic pseudo-voting and administrative abuses, the majority of voters chose not to vote.
Responding to popular sentiment, the CPRF proposed a draft Electoral Code. It dispenses with the Draconian municipal filter, uncontrolled “distance voting” and several-days voting. We are confident that a capital overhaul of the electoral system is impossible without the adoption of and strict compliance with such a code. These changes would enable our compatriots to trust election results, unite society and ensure the coveted victory for the country.
In Moscow the authorities tried to deny the citizens the opportunity to vote by paper ballots. Ballots were in short supply and hard to come by. As a result, only 140,000, or 4.5% of Muscovites, were able to express their will in the traditional way. “Electronic voting” in the capital was accompanied by the “Million Prizes” lottery, which looked very much like a form of buying votes.
Attempts to foist on the nation distance electronic three-day voting are growing more and more persistent. The CPRF insists that such voting must not be used as the main form of citizens expressing their will. It is inadmissible to replace traditional paper ballot voting by this system. Paper ballots areamenable to control and are trusted by society. Attempts to dump normal voting grossly violate citizens’ constitutional rights.
By imposing electronic voting, the authorities supplant public performance of the civic duty by opaque manipulations. Sinister silence at polling stations, empty ballot boxes and a sense of despondency betray the farcical nature of such voting. The alienation of citizens from the process of forming power bodies is obvious. The digital “electronic support” is not conducive to real cohesion of society in the years of serious trials. Russia’s adversaries are more likely to interfere in such voting, posing a direct threat to our national security.
Voting in the Bryansk, Rostov, and Novgorod oblasts saw gross violations of electoral legislation. Complaints and irregularities have been grossly under-counted. Many members of electoral commissions, including the Central Electoral Commission, cover up irregularities in the lower-level commissions. Law enforcers often fail to record or investigate complaints properly.
During the course of the last elections CPRF representatives filed about a thousand complaints and petitions with electoral commissions and law-enforcement bodies. A number of regional party committees – from Petersburg to Kamchatka – have reported violations and challenged the announced voting returns. Our comrades have deposited their special opinions with electoral commissions of various levels.
Every year the head of the CEC makes more and more dubious comments on the organization and conduct of the elections. We insist that no one has the right to level groundless accusations at our party for alleged inconsistency in protecting citizens’ rights. We consider unacceptable the smearing of our educational materials, criticism of CPRF members of election commissions and observers for their struggle for honest elections and ungrounded attacks on communist deputies. Such behavior discredits the CEC leadership, which should show restraint and be neutral in the struggle between political forces.
We appreciate all the citizens who have backed the CPRF by their votes. The Communist Party has preserved its electorate, the status of the main opponent of power and the leading opposition political force. The CPRF has strengthened its position in some regions. Our program is fighting its way to recognition. Today the party has representation in all the regional parliaments, something only United Russia can also claim. In upholding the interests of the working people, the CPRF enjoys unflagging support of the popular masses.
Alas, electoral legislation in Russia is extremely distorted. Nevertheless, the CPRF continues to struggle for honest elections. Our party has delegated 25,000 observers and members of election commissions. At many polling stations, only the communists recorded violations. Representatives of other parties were simply absent.
We communists look ahead with confidence. A creative program, a strong team, and historical truth are our powerful arsenal. Many of our comrades have displayed talent during the course of the past elections. Young people made a good showing. Their experience and energy will be used in the forthcoming elections for the State Duma.
The CPRF continues to implement its program of the struggle against Fascism and Banderism, impoverishment and population decline, economic crisis and the technological lag. It is a realistic plan of protecting the genuine interests of the working people, pensioners, the youth, motherhood and childhood. The key demands of the Victory Program are fully consonant with the aspirations of the majority of our citizens:
– Doubling the federal budget to turn it into a development budget.
– Bringing strategic industries and system-forming banks back into state ownership.
– Repeal of the pensions reform and bringing down the pension age.
-Raising the minimum wage and the living minimum to 35,000 roubles a month.
– State regulation of prices for staple food and medical items.
– Limiting utilities tariffs to no more than 10% of the family income.
– Support of new families and families with many children, including 20-year interest-free instalment plan for the purchase of the first flat by a family.
– immediate adoption of the Federal Law On War Children with measures of state support of the elderly.
– Implementation of the CPRF’s Education for All program and guaranteed free and quality education.
– Free medical care for the citizens of all population centers in the country.
– Introduction of progressive taxation of the incomes of physical persons, tax relief for the poor.
– Promoting economic and cultural integration in the post-Soviet space while settling the issues of uncontrolled migration.
An important part of our program is transition from degradation to confident development of the country, reliance on grassroots initiative, the creation of a fair electoral system and honest elections without “three-day” and “electronic” voting. The electoral system should be brought up to the best democratic standards.
We consider it exceedingly important to adopt the Electoral and Labor Codes developed by the CPRF. We demand the restoration of the institution of non-voting members of electoral commissions including their right to oversee the work of lower-level commissions. We insist on the restoration of party tickets in the conduct of elections in all the country’s regions and at all levels.
A fair election system and honest elections is the key condition of the implementation of the will of the people and victory over external threats.
The country needs a new – victorious – model of socio-economic development!
Let us close our ranks in the struggle for a better future for our Motherland, in the struggle for socialism!
G.A.Zyuganov
Chairman of the CC CPRF