These days one of the most discussed themes in Russian political elite circles is that Dmitry Medvedev shifted the date of his last address to the Federation Council. Initially the president was to address it ahead of the parliamentary elections. Now it appears he will do it after them. Experts think the reason is that the authorities don’t want to worsen the position of the United Russia party ahead of the 4th of December. “In this election the constant campaign presence of the president and the premier in information space doesn’t improve United Russia’s rating,” the head of the Petersburg Policy fund Mikhail Vinogradov said.
However, retiring deputies of the fifth State Duma think they worked well. “We ratified 1581 federal laws and adopted 27 Federal Constitutional laws,” speaker Boris Gryzlov said. This absolute record won’t be surpassed, because the next deputies will be elected for 5 years.
The secretary of the Central Electoral Commission of Russia, Nikolay Konkin, spoke about preparations for elections to the sixth State Duma. According to him, on November 23rd the number of absentee ballots taken by voters should be presented to the electoral commissions of Russian regions through territorial electoral commissions. On the day when the conference took place, 145,532 absentee ballots were issued in Russia. On November 25th it will be possible to appraise the tendency of issuing absentee ballots in general in Russia.
The secretary of the CEC said that since the 18th of November early voting has been taking place. And by November 23rd about 12,590 people have already voted. Most of them are from the Irkutsk region (3296 people), the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous District (2796 people) and the Khanty-Mansyisk AD (1922 people).
Konkin stated that early voting is being held in diplomatic missions of Russia abroad: by the time the conferece had started it had ended in five countries – Bolivia, Congo, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka and Japan. In 13 countries it is still taking place. Voting was held in polling stations and was organized by diplomatic missions.
The secretary of the CEC spoke about a number of accredited international observers, as this question is interesting for the audience. By November 23rd 296 international observers had been accredited. Applications of 241 observers are being considered. According to the Central Electoral Commission, more than 600 international observers will follow the elections.
These parliamentary elections will be the first in Russia’s history to lead to a five-year term for the Duma. Applications for participation in the elections were sent by all seven registered parties of the country: United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Patriots of Russia, Right Cause, A Just Russia and Yabloko. Officially the results of the elections will be published by the 24th of December.
