Election watchdog ‘Golos’ announced shutdown. Is this the end of independent monitoring?

On 8 July 2025, amid the ongoing regional election campaign, the Movement in Defence of Voters' Rights ‘Golos’ announced that it was ceasing operations. The decision came shortly after Golos co-chair Grigory Melkonyants was sentenced to five years in prison for alleged cooperation with ENEMO, an international election-monitoring organization designated ‘undesirable’ by Russian authorities.

In a statement explaining this decision, Golos leadership said the court’s verdict left them with no choice: “The court's ruling [on Melkonyants' case] puts all Golos participants at risk of criminal prosecution — even those who merely sought legal advice or assistance from us”.

Following the announcement, Golos shuttered all regional offices, suspended its ongoing projects, and stopped updating its social media and the well-known “Map of Violations”.

In this article, REM sought expert analysis to answer the question: Does the closure of Golos mark the end of independent election monitoring in Russia?

“The Kremlin is eliminating witnesses to its crime”

In her comment for REM, political scientist Margarita Zavadskaya argues: “The unprecedented sentence given to Grigory Melkonyants, along with the dismantling of Russia’s entire independent election monitoring infrastructure, marks the elimination of professional evidence of the crimes committed by election fraudsters against their own citizens”.

The consequences of Golos closure are difficult to overstate. Independent media 7x7 outlined six implications for Russian civil society following the shutdown:

1. Without independent oversight, elections in Russia will become even more opaque, stripping citizens of a crucial mechanism for participation in governance.

2. With no organization left to train and deploy independent election observers, access to credible information about electoral fraud will become even more restricted.

3. The “Map of Violations” will cease to exist. This e-tool allowed citizens to report suspected violations, which Golos then turned into formal complaints submitted to electoral commissions, the media, and law enforcement.

4. Civil society will lose a key source of electoral expertise and institutional memory accumulated over the years of monitoring and legal work.

5. The space for civic engagement in Russia’s regions will shrink even further.

6. Finally, the shutdown will likely have a chilling effect on other NGOs and activists, discouraging them from working in areas the state labels ‘undesirable’.

Despite the bleak news, those who have worked with Golos in recent years argue that the Movement’s closure does not spell the end of independent election monitoring in Russia.

What will independent monitoring look like?

On the SOTA vision program dedicated to the closure of Golos, former co-chair Stanislav Andreychuk stated that “the observer movement is not just Golos, it is tens of thousands of trained individuals who have observed elections at polling stations in recent years”.

According to Andreychuk, the observer movement in Russia is one of the largest and most professional human rights movements in the world. He notes that alongside national initiatives and associations, there are also strong regional networks. Andreychuk expressed confidence that many of these individuals no longer rely on Golos to continue their work — they are capable of carrying on independent election observation on their own.

“This chick has left the Golos nest — it’s flying and feeding itself,” said the expert. “That’s why we shouldn’t mourn Golos too much”.

Andreychuk’s former colleagues share this perspective. Roman Udot, who is also a former co-chair of Golos, told Deutsche Welle that while the Movement’s closure may create organizational setbacks, the spirit of civic oversight will endure. “As long as there are elections, there will be observers”, Udot said. “Strange as it may sound, we will be back”.

Electoral analyst Ivan Shukshin, who discovered the falsification of 22 million votes for Putin in the 2024 election and was later placed on Russia’s federal wanted list, is confident that independent monitoring efforts will continue, even without Golos’s coordinating role. “Some will support municipal candidates, others will continue observing — even without a common platform”, Shukshin said.

In addition to independent observers, Shukshin points out, there will still be observers from the so-called ‘systemic opposition’ parties — those allowed by the authorities to formally participate in elections — who will continue to monitor polling stations.

European experts who have observed electoral processes in Russia remain cautiously optimistic. According to Stefanie Schiffer, Chair of the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE), independent observation in Russia is still possible, as the public demand for it has not disappeared. In her comment to DW, she stated, “The need for people to manage their affairs is deeply rooted and entirely justified — including in Russia”. However, Schiffer acknowledges that the level of organization previously provided by Golos will no longer be matched.

At the same time, election observation goes beyond just monitoring polling stations. Experts both within Russia and abroad will continue to analyze electoral processes and document violations. Andreychuk noted that the community of electoral experts — many of whom have worked together for years in Russia, often through Golos — remains closely connected through professional ties and shared experience. He expressed confidence that this network will continue its work, despite the challenges.

“I am going to take a short break”, Andreichuk said, “but I will definitely return to election analysis. It just won’t be under the Golos banner anymore”. He emphasized: “We’re not playing games like, ‘We’ve closed… or maybe we haven’t.’ Golos is closed”.

Still, the significance of elections in Russia remains undiminished. Elections act as a litmus test for the political system, and the lack of transparency and competitiveness reveals deep, systemic dysfunction across all areas of society, as well as a broader absence of social justice.

The repressions against Golos, an organization that sought to protect electoral transparency, suggest that the Kremlin still places great importance on elections — if only to ensure its control remains unchallenged and its abuses unrecorded. That’s why, according to Zavadskaya, it is now vital to preserve the data archives, reports, analyses, and institutional knowledge that Golos accumulated over the years.