Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee observed the Russian presidential elections on Sunday 4 March 2012. Below, a short summary of our detailed report.
The process for nominating candidates for the presidential elections was not free. The authorities refused registration for several candidates under false pretexts. One candidate, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, made uninhibited use of administrative resources throughout the country.
As many as 690,000 voluntary election observers monitored the voting, including 600 international observers. Many election observers were refused access to polling stations, they were threatened, detained, and manhandled.
So-called carousels of people who had sold their votes and misuse of absentee ballots was commonplace. In North Caucasus, each voter seemed to have more than one vote. In Chechnya, the official turnout was 99.61%, and Putin got 99.76% of the votes.
The online project, Nablyudenie 2012, which collects information from election observers, has thus far registered over 6,000 reports of election violations. The independent NGO, League of Voters, has registered more than 4,500 violations.
The GOLOS Association, which protects the electoral rights of Russian citizens, has registered more than 4,700 violations in its "Map of Violations." Presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov's election observers reported more than 4,000 violations.
The popular protest movement calling for free and fair elections stated that the presidential elections were illegitimate. The protest movement demanded new, early elections for both the president and the parliament. The Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee joins in the demand and urges that those guilty of violations be brought to justice.
