Leader of Sochi communists: "Edinaya Rossiya" wrote up half of its votes

Sochi communists made held a documentary analysis of the recent elections to the Russian State Duma. According to their version, the Sochi Territorial Election Commission (TEC) doubled the real number of votes won by the ruling "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party. The TEC spokesman refutes the allegations.

Communists assert that the "party of power" was supported by 25 percent of voters at the most, not by 56 percent officially announced.

Earlier, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reported that on the following day after the voting, that is, at night on December 6, the doors of the two rooms of the Sochi city office of the CPRF, situated on the ground floor of a five-story apartment building at No. 13 Gorky Lane, were broken. Copies of December 4 voting protocols from the polling stations of Sochi were stolen from the office.

The police of the Tsentralny District of Sochi refused to initiate a criminal case on the fact of the theft of documents and damage to property of the Sochi City Committee of the CPRF, arguing that the act was committed by an "unidentified person" and was of no public danger. Communists appealed against the refusal.

According to Yuri Dzaganiya, Chairman of the Sochi City Committee of the CPRF, communists appealed to the local investigatory committee and submitted evidences of election fraud, obtained after analyzing the protocols, which had been kept by CPRF members and were not stolen by malefactors.

"It's clearly seen from these protocols how, where, by whom and when falsifications were made at vote counting. Based on these data, we made a thorough analysis and draw up spreadsheets on four districts of Sochi. These results were handed over to investigators of the ICRF (Investigatory Committee of the Russian Federation)," said Dzaganiya.

He noted that the most unpleasant thing was that the frauds were committed by workers of the budget sector. "Mainly, teachers, directors of kindergartens and schools - the persons, whose civil position and honesty should be beyond doubts, are malefactors," said Dzaganiya, adding that it caused great concern in him for upbringing of the younger generation.

Vadim Belous, Chairman of the TEC "Tsentralnoe" and a member of the "Edinaya Rossiya", said in his comment on communists' allegations that he "knew nothing about it."

Mr Belous left the reporter's question on how could it be that figures in the protocols received from polling stations differed from the total figures loaded by the TEC "Tsentralny" into the Russian State Automated System "Elections" unanswered. He only added that so far "nobody from polling stations or his TEC was summoned to the ICRF."

Stanislav Merzlyakov, the leader of the local branch of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), has treated the facts of frauds and theft of votes from the parties as "outrageous".

He said that the LDPR is also planning to apply to the ICRF on the fact of theft of votes, as the Sochi branch of the LDPR also has copies of protocols from polling stations (precinct election commissions). Now, they analyze them.

Communists submitted their applications on election frauds in Sochi to the head of the Krasnodar Territorial ICRF in late December 2011. These applications were then downloaded to the district departments of the ICRF of Sochi.

The spokesman of the ICRF said that currently the applications are studied; and applicants are invited for clarifications and explanations. One month was allocated to this procedure.