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"An election where there is not a level playing field for all contestants can hardly be considered as fair" he stated. "An election where there is not a level playing field for all contestants can hardly be considered as fair" he stated.


European Parliament Member{{fact}} Bernard Perego said after being shown four poll stations. “After we discussed what we saw, we came to the conclusion that the election was excellent in the way it was organized and that it met Western standards,” Perego said.<ref>http://russiatoday.ru/election/news/21649</ref> Additionally, the ] observer mission said the election was free and democratic. "The CIS observer mission states that the election is a major factor in the further democratization of public life in the Russian Federation, and recognizes it as free, open and transparent," said Nauryz Aidarov, head of the CIS mission.<ref>http://en.rian.ru/world/20080303/100488297.html</ref> European Parliament Member Bernard Perego said after being shown four poll stations. “After we discussed what we saw, we came to the conclusion that the election was excellent in the way it was organized and that it met Western standards,” Perego said.<ref>http://russiatoday.ru/election/news/21649</ref> Additionally, the ] observer mission said the election was free and democratic. "The CIS observer mission states that the election is a major factor in the further democratization of public life in the Russian Federation, and recognizes it as free, open and transparent," said Nauryz Aidarov, head of the CIS mission.<ref>http://en.rian.ru/world/20080303/100488297.html</ref>


The head of Russia's electoral commission ] said that media coverage for the presidential election had been "fair but not equal".<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7270323.stm</ref> The head of Russia's electoral commission ] said that media coverage for the presidential election had been "fair but not equal".<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7270323.stm</ref>

Revision as of 08:03, 5 March 2008

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The Russian Presidential election of 2008, held on March 2, 2008 resulted in the election of Dmitry Medvedev, whose candidacy was supported by incumbent president Vladimir Putin, as Russia's next President. Mr. Medvedev, who received over 70% of the vote, defeated candidates from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the Democratic Party of Russia .

Results

Template:Russian presidential election, 2008

Сandidates

Registered candidates

Four candidates registered their nomination with the Central Electoral Commission:

Boris Nemtsov, former Vice Prime Minister in Sergei Kiriyenko's Cabinet, was nominated by the Union of Right Forces on December 18, 2007 and became a registered candidate on December 22. He withdrew his bid on December 26, 2007 and called on his supporters to vote for Kasyanov instead.

Dismissed candidates

Central Election Commission disqualified a number of candidates.

  • Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Prime Minister and current leader of the People's Democratic Union, was the fifth candidate. It was not known if Kasyanov would continue his candidacy after Garry Kasparov had entered the race, but on December 8, 2007 he reaffirmed he would run in the election. Registered candidate on December 14. He had registered successfully, but later it was decided that too many of his signatures of support were forged and he was disqualified. Kasyanov appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which rejected the appeal on February 6, 2008. The Kremlin-supported Bogdanov has also had a similar criminal investigation opened against him, but it was reported that even if the accusations are proven, his candidacy will not be dismissed.
  • Vladimir Bukovsky - Soviet-era dissident. On August 3, 2007 he received a new Russian passport at the Russian Embassy in London. He arrived in Moscow in October to launch his campaign. His bid was refused because he didn't live in Russia in the last 10 years, which is required by the law.

Declared candidates

Many Russian politicians publicly indicated their intention to run for President in 2008, but failed to submit their nomination:

  • Sergei Gulyayev - Former St Petersburg Yabloko regional legislator who announced his intention to run, despite the fact that Yabloko's leader has also declared his intention to stand. Gulyayev was the fourth candidate from the Other Russia coalition to announce his candidacy.
  • Grigory Yavlinsky, Leader of the Yabloko party, who also stood for the presidency in 1996 and in 2000, was widely expected to run for the presidency as a candidate of united liberal parties. However, at the Yabloko congress, on December 14, 2007, it was announced that Yavlinsky and his party would support the candidacy of Bukovsky.

Fair Russia announced on December 7, 2007 that they would not nominate their own candidate and would support another party's candidate instead (likely United Russia's).


Kremlin-endorsed candidate

Vladimir Putin, who is barred by the Russian Constitution from seeking a third consecutive term, has officially endorsed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. According to Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov, if Putin resigned as president early an interim president would be appointed. Therefore Putin could run and be elected president again since the third term would not be consecutive to the first two (separated by the short interim presidency).

On December 10, 2007, Putin announced that he would support Dmitry Medvedev as his successor. Medvedev will also be backed by United Russia, Fair Russia, the Agrarian Party of Russia and Civilian Power. Medvedev was officially nominated on December 17 at a United Russia party congress, where Putin publicly agreed to become PM after the presidential election if Medvedev won.

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the Russian presidential election, 2008

According to recent opinion polls, Dmitry Medvedev, the chosen successor of current president Vladimir Putin, was expected to receive anything up to 82% of the vote The second highest polling candidate was Gennady Zuganov, Leader of the Communist Party of Russia, who was expected to receive between 6 and 15% of the vote.

An opinion poll by the Yury Levada Analytical Center, published after Vladimir Putin announced he would head the electoral list of United Russia in the 2007 Parliamentary elections, showed a commanding lead for Medvedev and Ivanov, with Viktor Zubkov receiving ratings of only four percent.

Incident

During the pre-election debates on the Star TV on February 20, Nikolai Gotsa, a representative of Bogdanov, accused Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his party of lies and betrayal of their supporters. He accused them of voting in favor of government initiatives they criticize when in public. Zhirinovsky replied fiercely, insulting Gotsa and calling him "sick man, a schizoid", "bastard", and even punched him when they went off the cameras. Bogdanov and Gotsa launched a legal issue against Zhirinovsky. On February 28, in another debate, Bogdanov claimed he had a personal talk with Zhirinovsky, and that the latter had threatened his life and demanded to withdraw the issue.

Election fairness

Prior to the election, many in the Western media had portrayed Russia's presidential election as a farce, and accused them of planning mass fraud.British news outlet The Guardian quoted Marina Dashenkova of the Golos monitoring group, Renat Suleymanov of the Communist party in Novosibirsk, Vladimir Bespalov of the Vladivostok parliament and others, accusing the Russian government of massive election fraud, including ballot-stuffing and forcing government employees and students to vote.However, these claims were not supported by the various international election monitoring organizations in attendance. Russia Today quoted a monitor from Slovakia, Anna Belousovova, saying

There were some critics who didn’t even bother to get themselves familiar with the way the election system works here. They started saying straightaway that the election was undemocratic. But I think that the citizens of Russia stopped the mouths of those critics with their high turnout. The main attribute of a democratic country is that all decisions are made by the people. Politicians and everybody else should respect the choice of people.

According to observers from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the only western observers to attend, Russia's 2008 presidential election reflected the will of voters, but they questioned the fairness of the poll. Andreas Gross, head of the group from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said the vote was a "reflection of the will of the electorate whose democratic potential unfortunately has not been tapped." and questioned fairness of the vote due to unfair media access adding the election "repeats most of the flaws seen in the parliamentary elections last December." Gross said that as in the past ly voters had a limited choice and pointed to the "insurmountable" difficulties one candidate faced in registering to run in Sunday's contest." "An election where there is not a level playing field for all contestants can hardly be considered as fair" he stated.

European Parliament Member Bernard Perego said after being shown four poll stations. “After we discussed what we saw, we came to the conclusion that the election was excellent in the way it was organized and that it met Western standards,” Perego said. Additionally, the Commonwealth of Independent States observer mission said the election was free and democratic. "The CIS observer mission states that the election is a major factor in the further democratization of public life in the Russian Federation, and recognizes it as free, open and transparent," said Nauryz Aidarov, head of the CIS mission.

The head of Russia's electoral commission Vladimir Churov said that media coverage for the presidential election had been "fair but not equal".

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in its capacity as an international election standards watchdog, refused to monitor the election because of what it called severe restrictions on its observers by the Russian government. After weeks of negotiations, Russia agreed to increase the observer numbers for the ODIHR mission and extend the time frame for its visit, but the ODIHR claimed that the offer still didn't meet their requirements, insisting that it needed to send at least 50 of its observers to Russia on February 15, five days before the date proposed by Moscow, in order effectively monitor the election campaign.

Russia in reply stated that it was complying fully with its international obligations and that its invitation for 400 monitors meets international standards. They accused the OSCE of attempting to politicize the dispute and that it suspected ODIHR's intention from the outset was to boycott the election.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that

The Russian side consented to 25 observers arriving this week and the rest of them on February, 25. Our proposal was denied. The Office (OSCE) insisted it will not send its observers to Russia unless Moscow accepts its demands. This is an ultimatum a self-respecting country cannot accept.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mikhail Kamynin, said "The ODIHR flatly rejected a compromise without providing any clear explanations for its position. We believe such actions are unacceptable." Kamynin added that Moscow "deeply regretted" the OSCE refusal, accusing the organization, which he said generally sends 10-20 experts to observe election campaigns one or two weeks ahead of polls, of political bias towards Russia.

References

  1. "Russia's Presidential Election Set for March, 2008". mosnews.com. December 14, 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  2. Political forces, Economist Intelligence Unit, April 20, 2007.
  4. Reintroducing: The Democratic Party Of Russia, The eXile, June 15, 2007.
  5. Presidential candidate Bogdanov denies Kremlin ties, Reuters, January 30, 2008.
  6. http://www.cikrf.ru/postancik/Zp070620.jsp
  7. Kommersant Moscow. Zyuganov Announces His Presidential Bid. 2007-6-11
  8. ITAR-TASS Communist leader Zyuganov nominated for Russia presidency. 2007-12-15.
  9. http://www.cikrf.ru/postancik/Zp070623.jsp
  10. Kyiv Post. Russian opposition party SPS nominates Nemtsov as presidential candidate
  11. Центральная избирательная комиссия Российской Федерации
  12. RIA Novosti - Russia - Opposition candidate Nemtsov quits Russian presidential race
  13. People's Daily Online. Russian ex-PM nominated presidential candidate. 2007-12-8.
  14. Investigators Target Kasyanov Camp
  15. BBC NEWS | Europe | Kasyanov barred from Russian poll
  16. Former Russian PM challenges refusal to register him as presidential candidate - People's Daily Online
  17. Russian court rejects former PM's request to enter presidential race - People's Daily Online
  18. News.ru. Прокуратура выявила факт подделки подписей в поддержку Богданова. Но участь Касьянова ему не грозит. 2008-01-31.
  19. The Moscow Times. Bukovsky to Run for President 2007-5-29
  20. Article not available
  21. Об отказе в регистрации группы избирателей, созданной для поддержки самовыдвижения Владимира Константиновича Буковского кандидатом на должность Президента Российской Федерации, и ее уполномоченных представителей
  22. BBC News. Neo-Nazis on rise in Russia.
  23. ЦентрИзбирКом[http://www.cikrf.ru/postancik/Zp070627.jsp . Постановление Об отказе в регистрации группы избирателей, созданной для поддержки самовыдвижения Олега Семеновича Шенина кандидатом на должность Президента Российской Федерации, и ее уполномоченных представителей]
  24. Washingtonpost.com. Accidental Allies in Russian Politics. 2007-6-15.q
  25. Kasparov Says He Was Forced to End Bid for Presidency, Andrew Kramer, The New York Times, December 13, 2007
  26. La Russophobe. Putin Seizes Total Control of 2008 "Election" Sham Retrieved on 2007-11-27.
  27. Free Republic.com Gerashchenko ready to become opposition candidate. 2007-5-17.
  28. The Moscow Times. Gulyayev to Run for President. 2007-6-26.
  29. The Moscow Times. Yavlinsky Ready to Run in '08. 2007-6-18.
  30. Liberal Yavlinsky, perennial Russian candidate, not running for president
  31. RIA Novosti A Just Russia party will not nominate presidential candidate. 2007-12-7.
  32. The Moscow Times.Presidential Vote Set for March 2 2007-11-27
  33. Telegraph.co.uk Putin backs Dmitry Medvedev as his successor. 2007-12-12.
  34. Template:Ru icon Дмитрий Медведев выдвинут в президенты России Lenta.ru
  35. Putin: I will agree to become PM. CNN. 2007-12-17.
  36. SMH.com.au. Putin urged to lead government after Kremlin. 2007-12-12.
  37. BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Rivals in Kremlin race
  38. Angus Reid Global Monitor. Ivanov Leads, Zubkov Negligible in Russia 2007-10-3.
  39. Bogdanov versus Zhirinovsky, five-year prison term asked
  40. The Economist An ugly victory
  41. The Guardian Kremlin accused of fixing election 2008-2-29
  42. http://russiatoday.ru/election/news/21649
  43. http://en.rian.ru/world/20080303/100488297.html
  44. http://russiatoday.ru/election/news/21649
  45. http://en.rian.ru/world/20080303/100488297.html
  46. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7270323.stm
  47. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/03/03/russia.election/index.html
  48. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080207/98680172.html
  49. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=292473
  50. "300+ monitor Russian poll; OSCE skips". Russia Today. 2008-03-02. Retrieved 2008-03-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  51. http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080207/98680172.html

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