Dzaganiya: at early voting in Sochi administrative resources were used

Yuri Dzaganiya, former candidate to the post of Sochi Mayor from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) has stated that at early voting during the recent election the authorities made use of their administrative resources, since the early voters were dependent on local authorities.

"We've not lodged any claims on violations during the voting day yet. At present, we analyze all the protocols that arrive to us, including the Commission's acts with account of early voters. Now, the overall picture looks like that: 90-95% of votes at early voting were cast for the candidate from the party in power," said Mr Dzaganiya.

According to his story, this is an indication of the fact that "early voting is a method of achieving the wanted result through administrative influence on citizens." "The point is that early voters were administratively dependent citizens. They are employees of schools, polyclinics, hospitals, etc., those dependent in their financial relations and by administrative functions from the authorities of the city," Yuri Dzaganiya said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

In the opinion of Boris Nemtsov, former candidate to the post of Sochi Mayor from the movement "Solidarity", the main falsification at the passed election was in the early voting of more than 30,000 voters. "It's a bit less than 30% of the total turnout. The tabulation of early voters has shown that from 95 to 100% of them had voted for Pakhomov," Mr Nemtsov has stated.

He said that "people were brought in buses to polling stations; many of them were threatened that they would lose jobs and wages if they didn't vote for the 'proper' candidate."

On April 16, Boris Nemtsov filed a complaint to the City Electoral Commission against enforcing workers of Sochi enterprises to early voting, which took place from April 15 to April 22. However, the CEC of Sochi has reported that they have no such information.