Krasnodar Club of Civil Education and NGO Civic Voice arrange round table discussion

On February 26, the Krasnodar regional rights NGO Civic Voice jointly with the Krasnodar Club of Civil Education of the Krasnodar Regional NGO Creative Union "Southern Wave" held a round table discussion titled "Problems of Protecting Voters' Rights at the Elections on March 14, 2004." Krasnodar NGO activists, members of election commissions of different levels, Civic Voice mobile observers, political scientists, and journalists were participants in the discussion.

The chairman of the NGO Civic Voice, Mikhail Veligorodsky, opened the meeting. He told that the independent non-government organization (NGO) Civic Voice was registered on February 12. It became an assignee of the Association of Non-Profit Organizations in Defense of Voters' Rights "Golos". In his report, which preceded the discussion, Mr Veligorodsky touched upon some aspects of the election legislation that conflict with the democratic nature of this procedure. Thus, the article on securing [the turnout for] elections is an exclusive Russian feature, which is not found in the legislation of other democratic countries. Forced to secure a 70-percent turnout, authorities at the local level resort to the most inconceivable tricks. And one of the most critical problems is a problem of the so called "dead souls", i.e. citizens not stricken of territorial lists after their death of departure.

Then Mikhail Veligorodsky made a comparative analysis of the mass media presenting pre-election materials. According to his observations, only a fourth of the free air time assigned for agitation is used for proper purposes. At the same time, candidates use a so called administrative resource with impunity and fill up the regional air with their secret advertising.

Participants in the round table tried to find a way out of the situation without an alternative that has arisen on the eve of the election and impartially discussed candidates to be pseudo-alternatives. The discussion resulted in the nearly unanimous opinion that the establishment of the 2008 Committee was practically the only solution to the problem under present conditions.