Noisy elections with blood or silent elections without choice or competition
The Dagestani municipal elections passed peacefully on the 10th of October, without scandals or turmoil. Representatives of electoral commissions believe this is the result of the high organization of the voting process and the electoral law.
However, it’s more likely that the real cause of the peace and tranquillity during the elections was the lack of choice, as evidenced by the low turnout - people would not vote for the officials, but there was no alternative. Some re-elected officials eliminated their competitors in advance, by forcing them to withdraw their candidacies under threat of creating problems for them or with the reward of some other office. Alternative candidates were denied registration by the electoral commissions.
In those municipalities where real competition was preserved, the voting was accompanied by numerous violations, including murders. On the single day of voting the acting head of a village, Hadzhalmahi Abumuslim Nurmagomedov, was assassinated, and six people were injured.
In the Tlyaratinsky district the supporters of the candidate who lost the elections to the office of the head of the district rioted on the 25th of October. The local Interior Affairs Department informed “Vestnik Kavkaza” that about 500 people entered the building of the district administration to protest against the results of the elections and staged a riot, smashing furniture and breaking doors.
The district sent additional security forces, riot police and representatives of the investigative authorities. Settlement of the conflict involved the vice-premier of Dagestan, Rizwan Kurbanov.
The elections in the Katagsky district were disrupted because of extra ballots. The local deputies were choosing the head of the district among themselves. With just 16 deputies, they discovered 18 ballots.
The deputy president of the Union for the Protection of the Rights and Freedoms of Peoples, Individuals and Citizens, Ruslan Rasulov, appealed to the Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor in Dagestan, with a request to initiate criminal proceedings into the violation.
Losses and selling of ballots have occurred in other parts of the country as well.
Musa Musayev, Makhachkala. Exclusively for “Vestnik Kavkaza."
