The new-old Central Election Commission: an authentic renewal or a superficial touch up?

On March 19, 2021, the new composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC) of the Russian Federation was revealed. Three entities take part in the nomination of members to the CEC: the State Duma, the Federation Council and the President of Russia. Each entity appoints five people. However, de facto it is the Presidential Administration that shapes the CEC.

The State Duma and the Federation Council both announced their five appointees back on February 17. The announcement of the five presidential appointees had to wait one more month. It is worth noting that this year the shortlisting of candidates was not transparent at all. The deputies did not hear the candidates, nor did they consider appointees individually. Instead, they voted in batches. Moreover, the appointment was conducted with no competition both in the Federation Council and the State Duma.

According to independent election observers, this new composition, just like the previous ones, will not fulfill the principle of the independence of the CEC from the executive authorities guaranteed by the law. It is also unlikely that the newly elected Central Election Commission would make fateful decisions, which could possibly improve the conduct of the elections in Russia.

The new commission has been 'reinforced' by bureaucrats from the Presidential Administration, the State Duma, and the Civic Chamber (a consultative civil society institution closely linked to the government). In addition, among the new members we may find several persons, whose oversight of elections conducted in their respective regions remains highly questionable. For instance, Elmira Khaimurzina, who has played a dubious role as the Head of the election commission of Moscow region has been included in the new composition, whereas Maya Grishina, a truly experienced member and secretary, who, in particular, was responsible for the methodological segment of the CEC, was removed from the body.

As specified above, the Central Election Commission is represented by 15 people. The CEC is appointed by the upper and lower chambers of Parliament, as well as by the President himself. It stays in force for a period of five years.

In 2021, of the 15 total members, eight new members have joined the CEC:

• Pavel Andreev (Head of the Federal state institution 'Apparatus of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation')
• Natalia Budarina (employee of the Presidential Administration, ex-employee of the CEC and Deputy Head of the Department for Legal Support of Electoral Campaigns of the CEC, organized by United Russia party)
• Alexander Kurdyumov (First Deputy Head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) faction within the State Duma)
• Konstantin Mazurevsky (Chief of the Apparatus of the United Russia faction within the State Duma)
• Lyudmila Markina (Oryol Regional Election Commission Chair)
• Elmira Khaimurzina (Head of the Krasnogorsk District, Secretary of the local branch of United Russia party, curator of government elections in the vicinities of Moscow and former Chair of the Election Commission in Moscow region)
• Andrey Shutov (Chair of the pro-presidential foundation Expert Institute for Social Research, dean of the Political Science Faculty at the Moscow State University)
• Igor Borisov (member of the CEC 2007-2011, currently member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights)

From 2017 to 2021 Pavel Andreev headed the apparatus of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation. Prior to that, he had served as a diplomat and worked at the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti. Andreev spent three years working as an executive director of the Fund for Support and Development of theinternational discussion club Valdai. Yet nothing specific can be said about his expertise in the field of elections.

Natalia Budarina worked at the Institute for Information Law Issues until 2002. In 2001, she criticized the draft of a new electoral law. From 2002 to 2006 she worked in the legal department of the CEC. She then spent nine years working in the apparatus of the United Russia party, which was later followed by six years of work at the Department of Internal Policy in the Presidential Administration. She is currently the CEC Secretary. Budarina is very knowledgeable of the electoral law, but there are great doubts that she would defend the electoral rights of Russian citizens.

Alexander Kurdyumov has been appointed by the LDPR quota to replace the resigned Sergey Sirotkin. Before entering politics, Kurdyumov served in the internal affairs bodies. Later he was the head of the security service of the academic institute. He started his political career in 1996 as an assistant to a deputy of the State Duma. He worked both as director of the Department for Informatization at the Administration of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and as Deputy Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region during the time when the Governor was a representative of the Communist party. Since 2003, with interruptions, Alexander has been a deputy of the State Duma.

Konstantin Mazurevsky has worked in the Party of Pensioners (created to draw votes away from the Communist party), in the government of the Republic of Tyva (one of the most undemocratic regions of Russia), and as an Advisor to the Prefect of one of the administrative districts of Moscow. Since 2010, his work has been greatly linked to the United Russia party, as he worked within the Department of Electoral Processes and headed the headquarters of the 'Young Guard of the United Russia'. He has ultimately served as Chief of Apparatus of the United Russia faction within the State Duma.

From 2014 to 2021 Lyudmila Markina was the Chair of the Election Commission in Oryol region. Prior to that, she had worked as a Secretary and then as a Deputy Chair of the commission. She had begun her legal career in the internal affairs bodies and later worked as a lawyer in various companies. Before joining the regional election commission, she spent two years working in the office of the Governor. The Oryol region usually stays somewhat in the middle in terms of the level of electoral falsification. The President of Russia has been appointing a representative of the Communist party as the head of the Oryol region since 2014. However, this does not prevent United Russia from dominating the elections in this area.

From 2014 to 2018 Elmira Khaimurzina worked as the Deputy Chair in the Government of Moscow region. When the CEC invited the Governor of Moscow region to include Andrei Buzin (Co-Chair of the independent election observation movement Golos) into the Moscow region election commission, it was Khaimurzina herself who persuaded the governor, in violation of the law, that Buzin was not welcome. In May 2018, Khaimurzina was appointed to the election commission of the Moscow region and was elected its Chair. It was under her leadership that the commission held elections for the position of Governor of the Moscow region, during which massive falsifications were registered. In October 2018, Khaimurzina left the commission and was appointed Head of the urban district of Krasnogorsk (the city where the majority of offices of the Moscow region's government are located). Khaimurzina graduated from the Kaliningrad Border Institute of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation. From 2010 to 2012 she worked as the Head of the Regional Executive Committee of the Kaliningrad regional branch of United Russia.

Andrey Shutov is a political scientist and Doctor of historical sciences. He has worked at the Moscow state university for 20 years, heading first the Department of state policy and then the Department of History and theory of politics. He has been the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science of the Moscow State University since 2008. Shutov is the Chair of the Russian Society of Political Scientists (since 2013) and of the Board of Directors of the Expert Institute for Social Research (since 2017). The latter is considered the think tank of the internal political block of the Presidential Administration. In 2018, his faculty was commissioned to develop a draft of the Code on Elections and Referenda. This work was presided over by Shutov himself. However, the draft turned out to be quite poor, as the most radical proposals (both positive and negative, according to independent observers) were not taken into consideration, thus, becoming mere addenda to the document. The project is practically unremembered now.

Igor Borisov is a founder of the Russian Public Institute for Electoral Law, as well as its director. He holds a Ph.D. in law and is quite an expert in the field of electoral law. He served as an officer of the armed forces. However, for at least 15 years Borisov has been working exclusively in the interests of the Russian authorities. He repeatedly participated in various OSCE missions and spoke at OSCE events, criticizing OSCE leadership and accusing it of double standards. Borisov also constantly criticizes Golos and its leaders. From 2007 to 2011 he served as a member of the CEC. Being part of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, Borisov tried to block the adoption of decisions related to safeguarding the electoral rights of citizens. Back then he also headed a monitoring group, which would register minor violations during the elections, without, however, noticing the major ones. In 2018, Borisov entered the Scientific and Expert Council under the CEC and tried to block its work as well.

The younger persons not included in the new composition of the CEC, are Maya Grishina and Alexander Kinev. Maya Grishina started to work at the CEC in 1993. She was employed by the legal department of the commission to be later promoted to the head of the department. In 2007 she became a member of the CEC and in 2016 its Secretary. She was de facto the author of most of the electoral laws. She is the most literate person in terms of electoral legislation and its process. Notwithstanding this, she did not seek to protect the electoral rights of citizens, although she did try to hinder openly illegal decisions.

Alexander Kinev was to represent Yabloko party in the CEC, although he had de facto been appointed by the President (even though he was indeed a member of Yabloko). Once in the CEC, he was responsible, in particular, for the interaction with election observation organizations and at first was willing to cooperate. With time, however, his willingness ceased.

Seven members of the previous CEC composition have been reappointed. Among them are:

• Nikolay Bulaev (he was the first Deputy Head of United Russia faction in the State Duma until 2016) - for the 2nd term;
• Yevgeny Kolyushin (Communist party) - for the 7th term;
• Boris Ebzeev - for the 3rd term;
• Anton Lopatin (represents the group of the State Duma deputies, in other words - United Russia) - for the 3rd term;
• Nikolay Levichev (Just Russia party) - for the 2nd term;
• Yevgeny Shevchenko (was a representative of Patriots of Russia party within the CEC until 2016) - for the 2nd term;
• Ella Pamfilova - for the 2nd term.

Nikolay Bulaev has remained the Deputy Chair of the CEC. Prior to his appointment to the CEC in 2016, he had been Deputy Head of the Ryazan region, deputy of the State Duma, Head of the Federal Agency for Education and member of the Federation Council. Having become a member of the CEC, he suspended his membership in United Russia, yet has essentially remained a representative of the 'party in power', whose interests Bulaev lobbies quite efficiently. He is very competent in matters of elections. In the former composition of the CEC, he actually managed such important areas as equipping polling stations with video surveillance cameras and de facto introduced the 'mobile voter' system. Yet he was also the one to try to limit the degree of transparency of these two systems. At times it might have seemed that his influence on the adoption of the most important decisions by the CEC was greater than that of the CEC chairs themselves.

Yevgeny Kolyushin is a Doctor of Law and a true veteran of the Central Election Commission. He has been a member of the CEC since 1995, representing the Communist party of the Russian Federation. As per his position, Kolyushin is often the only one to oppose the rest of the CEC members, to criticize the proposed decisions and the elections themselves. However, recently his criticism has become quite frail.

Boris Ebzeev is also a Doctor of Law and is considered a major specialist in constitutional law specifically. From 1991 to 2008 he was a judge at the Constitutional court of the Russian Federation. He resigned in order to be appointed head of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. Ebzeev spent three years as the head of the republic and then resigned. During his administration, the elections in the region were far from democratic. He was on top of the list of parliamentary representatives of United Russia without actually being a member of this party. After his resignation in 2011, he was included in the CEC. He will be remembered for his long speeches 'about nothing'. In his scientific publications, he sometimes defends electoral rights, but in practice often ignores them completely.

Anton Lopatin has been a member of the CEC since 2011. All of his previous activities were associated with United Russia and with one of its predecessors, namely Fatherland party. As a member of the CEC, he openly defends the interests of the state authorities and sometimes conflicts with independent election observation organizations.

Yevgeny Shevchenko was appointed to the CEC in 2016. Prior to that, he had been a member of the CEC with a consultative vote assigned by the Patriots of Russia party (which has recently merged with Just Russia). He worked quite actively at the CEC and operated in the regions of conflict. However, recently Shevchenko has clearly indulged violations of electoral rights.

Nikolay Levichev is going to represent Just Russia in the CEC for the 2nd term. He used to be one of the leaders of this party, the leader of its faction in the State Duma and the Deputy Chair of the State Duma. Levichev was one of the five deputies who submitted to the State Duma the draft of the Electoral Code of the Russian Federation, developed by independent election observers and experts from Golos. As a member of the CEC, he has been loyal to the election observation organizations, but inconsistent in defending the electoral rights of citizens.

The CEC members re-elected Ella Pamfilova as their Chair. Pamfilova headed the CEC in 2016, having extensive experience in human rights and interaction with observer organizations. From 2002 to 2010 she headed the Commission and later the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. From 2014 to 2016 she was the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation. Pamfilova participated in the activities of Golos and in 2007 created a public pool called 'The right to choose'. In her new position, she was initially determined to improve the condition of the Russian elections and actively interacted with various public bodies, including observer organizations. At the end of 2016, she created the Expert and Consulting Group, headed by the Co-Chair of Golos movement Andrei Buzin.

However, it gradually became clear that all of her positive endeavours were failing. She was not able to include representatives of independent observer organizations in the regional election commissions. She could not achieve democratization of the electoral legislation and did not manage to prevent the withdrawal of a large number of opposition candidates from the elections to the Moscow City Duma in 2019. The level of falsification was reduced, but not by much.

As a result, in 2018-2019, Pamfilova's relations with election observation organizations deteriorated. In 2020 she abolished the Expert and Consulting Group and the Scientific and Expert Council at the CEC, which had existed since the end of 2018 and was partially composed of democratically-minded experts (1/3 of members). During the 2020 all-Russian vote on amendments to the Constitution, the independence of the CEC was reduced to zero, and the level of violations of citizens' rights and direct falsification skyrocketed.

Summing up Pamfilova's input as head of the CEC, journalists at Holod magazine wrote:

"The woman who once claimed that she would never 'agree to participate in an imitation of either political struggle or elections' because it was 'beneath her dignity,' [now] advises the journalists to look for election irregularities in the US, rather than in Russia. She is the one to support multiple-day voting outside the polling stations and believes that in Russia all the necessary democratic voting procedures are observed."

According to Grigory Melkonyants, Co-Chair of Golos movement, this new composition of the CEC showcases a lack of independence due to its complete merger with the executive authority and this trend has reached its peak since the foundation of the commission.

Andrei Buzin, author of the book 'A view of elections in Russia: Inside, Outside, Sideways' and Golos Co-Chair, believes that although the new composition of the CEC does not inspire hope for improvement in the conduct of elections (unlike five years ago), this CEC would have even less influence than the previous one.

In late September, the judicial board for administrative disputes of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation rejected claims that both the three-day voting period and electronic voting in Moscow’s municipal elections were illegal. Thus, the dispute over the legitimacy of this form of expression of will has been put to rest forever.

In the elections which took place on September 9-11, opposition candidates were mostly defeated through Distance E-VotingRead Term in glossary.

The elections to municipal councils of deputies were won mostly by the United Russia party and candidates supported by the party, plus a few nominees from the CPRF, Just Russia and the New People parties. Candidates not affiliated with existing authorities accounted for only a small percentage of the total number elected, with the opposition camp admitting that some of the victories were entirely coincidental. This result was significantly different from the 2017 vote when municipal campaigns launched the political careers of many opposition figures.

We spoke to four municipal election contestants you may know from our previous articles about the past campaign and their future plans.