Sochi residents report on "voluntary-compulsory" participation in primaries of "Edinaya Rossiya" Party

In Sochi, not many people attended the polling stations at the primaries of the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party. Meanwhile, the city residents who came to the primaries stated that the directors of enterprises obliged them to come for voting and to report to them about that, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on May 22, the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party held preliminary voting in different regions (the very elections to the State Duma were scheduled for September 18). In the KrasnodarTerritory, 88 people reported their participation in the primaries of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party.

An employee of a baking enterprise, who introduced himself as Maxim, said that he, like other employees, was instructed by their director to come to the primaries of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party. The man has noted that they were to be "registered" at a polling station.

According to the voters interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent at two pooling stations, their participation in the preliminary voting of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party was "mandatory" and "involuntary", and they were required to "bring passports" and "get registered", i.e., to sign. Citizens have noted that the candidates were "people not known to anyone."

The primaries are a veiled PR campaign of the "Edinaya Rossiya" Party, and the misleading of voters. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Yuri Dzaganiya, an assistant to Sergey Obukhov, a State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF). According to Yuri Dzaganiya, many voters do not even understand the purpose of the preliminary voting and do not know any people of those for whom they were asked to vote.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.