СМИ о фонде
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| 10 сентября, 2013 | | | Читать на сайте издания |
Political reform on the run
Trud publication
By Lina Poloskova
Tuesday 10th September the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society held a Round Table meeting to discuss the topic “Political reform and election results”.
Opening the round table meeting, the chairman of the FoDCS Konstantin Kostin mentioned several important features of the regional elections that took place within the country – notably, the appearance of opposition candidates and the incredibly low number of disqualified candidates. The elections were held in 80 different regions and consisted of a total of 11,000 candidates, only 300 of whom were disqualified (around 2%). At the same time, 56 different political parties took part in the campaigns. “The old-timers of the party system, such as the parliament party, ‘Apple’ and ‘Patriots of Russia’, now face competition”, said Mr Kostin. According to him the newer parties such as ‘RPR-Parnas’, ‘Civil Platform’ and ‘Communists of Russia’ have a good chance of becoming serious competitors to the leading parties. Mr Kostin also noted that the last but not least important factor of the elections were the political campaigning techniques – intensive campaigning and working closely with the voters meant there was a very high number of votes.
According to Mr Polyakov, the elections have provided experts with a wealth of material for analyses. He said the political struggles that unfolded in the capital as well as other regions were unprecedentedly clean and honest, and the results certain. Based on all observations, Mr Polyakov concludes the whole picture is a very positive one. Out of the total number of appeals and complaints, which have noticeably decreased in recent years, no more than 20% turned out to be linked to actual violations. Since then, according to Mr Polyakov, we can safely say that the elections are becoming a recognised political institute in the Russian democratic system, which is very important in the stabilisation of the political system. They also stressed that the best results at the elections were achieved by the candidates of the ruling party.
Mr Polyakov said that all political parties and forces have an interest, and are indeed linked to, legitimacy of the elections. “If the opposition does not learn to accept defeat with dignity as a result of fair elections, then the very integrity of the elections will serve to repeatedly work against them”, said the expert. According to him, Alexei Navalny and the opposition should understand that playing games with the voters by means of naked demagoguery has no place in modern times. “Our interests lie with the people and making sure that the serious political capital of Navalny – 27% of votes equals 600,000 people – does not get squandered”, noted Mr Polyakov.
Valeriy Fyodorov, CEO of the All-Russian Research Centre of Public Opinion said that in the near future a post-election survey will be launched. He looked pleased to announce that honest elections increase the demand for political scientists and political experts.
The Director of the International Institute of Political Expertise Yevgeny Minchenko talked about the interesting paradox associated with the election campaigns. According to him, and to the surprise of political experts, the participation of the existing regional governors in the political debates did not lead to the expected decrease in ratings; on the contrary it led to a growth in popularity. In his opinion, the term “political reputation” should come into common use. Yevgeny Roizman (Yekaterinburg) and Anatoly Bikov (
