A public agreement was not signed between the presidential candidates, public organizations and law enforcement agencies on Monday. Only Sergei Mironov turned up for the signing. Putin’s representative Stanislav Govorukhin, who was indignant with the demarche of the candidates, refused even to discuss a draft agreement and left the event. Finally, pubic figures began to develop the document. The opposition presidential candidates consider the document to be of no use.
The debates on a draft public agreement on the conditions of legitimacy of democratic procedures to form the authorities in Russia were scheduled at the situation centre of the Emergencies Ministry, Kommersant writes. Presidential candidates, particularly Mikhail Prokhorov and Gennady Zyuganov were dissatisfied with a venue for the event back on Friday. “Why an agreement on fair elections should be signed in the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Is the situation with the fair nature of upcoming elections catastrophic,” Prokhorov contemplated.
Finally, the agreement was not even discussed. The newspaper quoted a statement made by head of the LDPR election staff Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who believes that the public agreement is “a useless paper and the way to make the opposition weaker.” “Today this looks like a cynical position, and we do not take this proposal in earnest,” he said.
Zyuganov and Prokhorov believe that this agreement can be signed only by all parties concerned, including Putin.
According to Deputy General Director of the Centre of Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin, the public agreement is needed for the authorities, so that the opposition will sign the document, which contains ‘anti- orange’ statements, Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted. So, the opposition could lose some supporters. Otherwise, the authorities will not turn out to be a loser, stating that the opposition is unconstructive, the expert pointed out.
The executive director of the Russian Public Institute of Suffrage, Alexander Ignatov, explained to the Novye Izvestia newspaper that the signatory parties of the document will be responsible for the observance of the agreement. “Naturally, this document will have no legal force. It is sooner political and declares the intentions of those, who signed it, to pool efforts and hold elections under the law. But the law is compulsory for all people all the same,” Ignatov recalled. “As for consequences of violating the conditions of the public agreement, they are sooner political, because the document is political. This is some mutual condemnation and public criticism,” he underlined.