Elections in Astrakhan were marked by a conflict with a candidate for deputy at a polling station

Candidate for deputy of the Astrakhan City Duma Andrei Smirnov, accused by a member of the precinct election commission of beating, recorded violations during voting in previous years, and the precinct where the incident with his participation occurred is known for falsifications, a local political scientist claims.

As "Kavkazsky Uzel" wrote, gubernatorial and municipal elections were held in the regions of Russia from September 12 to 14, including elections of city duma deputies in Astrakhan. At one of the precincts in Astrakhan, where the elections to the city duma were held, violations were recorded during home voting, and at another, the commission members returned to the premises after the precinct was closed. On September 15, the head of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova reported that candidate for deputy Andrei Smirnov tried to take documents with voters' personal data from the commission secretary at a polling station in Astrakhan and grabbed a woman, a member of the precinct election commission, by the hands. The candidate himself denied Pamfilova's statements.

The incident involving the Communist Party candidate Andrei Smirnov, against whom an administrative case of assault was opened, became the only scandal of the elections to the Astrakhan City Duma "against the backdrop of a general official lull," said political scientist Mikhail Doliev*.

According to Doliev*, he has been observing Smirnov's activity for a long time; in 2020, he recorded violations during the votes on amendments to the Constitution. Doliev*, who was an observer in the past, knows the polling station in Trusovsky District where the incident occurred and calls it “outrageous,” although Smirnov himself, in the opinion of the political scientist, is “a hot-blooded person.”

“There are some impudent people sitting at that polling station. He (Smirnov) noticed some kind of machinations with the additional list of voters that the commission secretary had, and asked to let him look at the list. They provoked a conflict, I don’t know the details, but as a result they filed a charge of assault against him,” the political scientist said.

He suggested that the police could “easily reclassify” the administrative article against Smirnov as a criminal one. “Smirnov most likely didn’t touch anyone. The secretary (of the polling station) was taken away in an ambulance. And the examination wrote everything as it should be, assault. They will work with him,” said Mikhail Doliev*.

There were no independent candidates in the September elections in Astrakhan, the so-called opposition parties were represented by an extremely small number of candidates. Doliev* noted that for the first time a candidate from the New People party entered the Astrakhan City Duma.

“There was no competition (in the last elections in Astrakhan). Some opposition parties were routed by parliamentary ones, people were afraid to run for some parties, for example, from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and A Just Russia. People were driven to the elections, as usual. I consider the non-admission of citizens who would like to be elected as deputies to be violations. Many politicians did not even dare to run - apparently, they are ending their careers. "In general, I see a formal approach to these elections," he concluded, adding that in connection with the violations identified, "no one in Astrakhan has been demanding a recount for a long time."

Andrei Smirnov himself, a candidate for deputy of the Astrakhan City Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the 35th district, states that "questions about the transparency of the process arose already on the first day of voting." Smirnov's position was presented in the Telegram channel "I love Astrakhan."

"Smirnov noted that at polling station No. 435 in the 29th school of the Trusovsky district, unexpectedly there were more than 35 applications for home voting, while at neighboring polling stations there were no such applications at all. At first, observers were not allowed to participate in the trip, but one of them still managed to accompany the commission. According to the candidate, the residents visited by the PEC members did not file any applications, and some called the commission "fraudsters." Smirnov also reported another episode: after the closure of polling station 435, the chairman and three members of the commission returned at night to the school building where the ballots were stored and stayed there for about an hour. They did not answer questions about the reason for the visit. Then he called the police and sent a statement to the regional election commission demanding that they check the surveillance camera recordings. Smirnov emphasized that the regional branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation demands a public investigation and an honest vote count,” the publication says.

* are included in the register of foreign agents.

** the activities of the Meta company (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) are prohibited in Russia.