CEC approves United Russia party list at elections to State Duma

MOSCOW, October 5 (Itar-Tass) —— The Russian Central Elections Commission approved the United Russia party list at the elections to the sixth State Duma on Wednesday.

President Dmitry Medvedev is the only candidate on the United Russia federal party list, which the party approved at a congress on September 23-24. Medvedev headed the United Russia party list at the suggestion of the leader of the ruling party and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. The party list, which the CEC ‘verified’, has 599 candidates, who are included in 80 regional groups.

United Russia as ‘a political heavyweight player’ was the last party, which approved its party list in the CEC from seven parties running in the elections. Meanwhile, the parliamentary majority party differs from other election runners not only with its federal party list, but also its makeup.

For the first time right seven regional groups of the party list were headed by members of the government: First Deputy Prime Ministers Igor Shuvalov (the Primorye Territory) and Viktor Zubkov (the Volgograd Region), Deputy Prime Ministers Igor Sechin (the Stavropol Territory), Vyacheslav Volodin (the Saratov Region), Alexander Zhukov (the Kaliningrad Region), Dmitry Kozak (St. Petersburg), Minister of Natural Resources Yuri Trutnev (the Perm Territory) and Minister of Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu (the Krasnoyarsk Territory).

Meanwhile, chief of the presidential staff Sergei Naryshkin will head the regional party list in the Leningrad Region.

Alongside, the candidates were elected for the first time during the primaries within the All-Russian Popular Front, which Putin initiated to form. Finally, the party list includes 416 members of the party and 183 non-partisans. Meanwhile several new candidates were put on the places in the party list that will be elected for sure.

Under the current election legislation, the approved party list cannot be changed. The party cannot change the positions for the candidates in the party list and can only drop a candidate from the party list without changing the configuration of the party list and its regional groups.

Meanwhile, the party list, which was approved at the recent United Russia Congress, had the highest number of 600 candidates, but the documents of a candidate were not included in the party list passed for approval. The ruling party explains this fact by purely ‘technical reasons’ over the lack of documents during the preliminary checkup of the party list inside the party in the alphabetical order.

The party list approval procedure precedes the registration procedure in the CEC that makes the party as an official runner in the elections.

The CEC also approved authorized party representatives and its authorized financial representatives and permitted the party to open a special election account on Wednesday.

United Russia has a constitutional majority of 315 from 450 seats in the current State Duma. The elections in the sixth State Duma will be held on December 4.