Candidates to State Duma declare predictability of election results in Dagestan

In Dagestan, the "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) Party has no worthy opponents, said Gadjimet Safaraliev, a candidate for MP from this party. However, oppositional candidates doubt fair election outcomes and state the authorities' intention to reduce the voter turnout.

Mr Safaraliev is sure that Dagestani electors vote for the "Edinaya Rossiya" (ER), the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), and partly – for the "Spravedlivaya Rossiya" (Fair Russia) Party. In their turn, oppositional candidates state the use of administrative resources against them.

"I participated in debates with candidates from the 'Yabloko' Party, CPRF, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) and the Pensioners' Party, and I see no rivals to the ER among them. Our party is engaged in very ambitious goals; its members are holding all the key posts," said Gadjimet Safaraliev, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on National Policy, who is No. 1 in the ER's list for Dagestan.

In Dagestan, the election outcomes are predictable, said Makhmud Makhmudov, No. 1 in the CPRF's list of candidates.

The ruling elite seeks to understate the voter turnout by making elections "as dull as possible" and discarding the real opposition out of the process, Maxim Shevchenko, a member of the Human Rights Council (HRC) under the President of Russia, who was denied registration as a candidate for the MP, is convinced.

Despite the official statistics, Dagestan has deteriorating living standards, unemployment and corruption, the candidates from the CPRF and "Yabloko" are sure.

The main problem of Dagestan is in its ruling elite, which fails to address the issue of improving people's lives, Mr Shevchenko is sure.

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