MOSCOW, September 19 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia’s Central Elections Commission on Monday begins the procedure of attesting federal election lists of political parties which seek participation in the election campaign for seats in the Russian State Duma, or lower parliament house.
The first item on the agenda is the nominee list from the Yabloko party, which held its congress on September 10 to 11 and submitted relevant documents to the Central Elections Commission already on September 14.
“An extraordinary meeting of the Central Elections Commission on Monday will consider issues of attesting the federal list of Yabloko candidates, the registration of the party’s authorized representatives and proxies,” Nikolai Konkin, the secretary of the Russian Central Elections Commission, told Itar-Tass.
According to Konkin, before September 15 the Central Elections Commission had received documents from the Patriots of Russia. The party held its congress on September 10. And late on Friday, September 16, representatives from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) also submitted their documents after a congress the party had had on September 13. “Representatives from the LDPR submitted their documents when the working hours were over, so we had to prolong our working day till two in the night,” Konkin said.
More to it, according to Itar-Tass information, the Central Elections Commission decided to receive documents on weekend as well and thus worked on Saturday and Sunday.
Under the Russian laws, the Central Elections Commission is to attest party lists within seven days. So far, it has received party lists from Yabloko, Patriots of Russia, and the LDPR.
The Right Cause party plans to hold its final congress on September 20, while three parliamentary parties, United Russia, the Communist Party of Russia (CPRF), and Just Russia will hold their election congresses on September 23 and 24.
The attestation procedure is not the same as registration. The latter gives parties the right to officially register for taking part in the parliamentary election race. In order to be registered, non-parliamentary parties, i.e. Yabloko, Patriots of Russia, and Right Cause, must collect 150,000 signatures in more than have of Russian regions, while the parliamentary parties, or United Russia, CPRF, LDPR, and Just Russia, do not have to do that, under law.
Elections to the Russian State Duma lower parliament house of the sixth convocation will be held on December 4, 2011.