A1+

DAGESTAN’S "DIRTY" ELECTION
[04:18 pm] 07 April, 2007

An election designed to break the hold of ethnic politics is accused
of being unfair.

Opposition parties have cried foul after a parliamentary election in
the largest republic in the North Caucasus, Dagestan, delivered a
resounding victory to the pro-Kremlin party, United Russia.

The final results of the March 11 poll were only announced on March
21, following a partial recount.

As a result of the recount, two opposition parties, the Communist
Party and Patriots of Russia, which would have been denied
representation in the 72-seat parliament by the initial results, were
awarded slightly more than seven per cent of the votes, giving them
five seats each.

United Russia was declared the overwhelming winner, with more than 63
per cent of the vote and 47 seats, with two other parties, Just Russia
and the Agrarian Party also winning seats in the assembly.

The new parliament can be expected to cooperate with Dagestan’s
president, Mukhu Aliev, but will also probably try to tame his
reforming ideas, as powerful businessmen and bureaucrats are well
represented among the United Russia deputies.

The election has been a testing one for Dagestan – Russia’s most
multi-ethnic region – as new rules tried to prevent the poll being
contested on purely ethnic grounds. But the campaign was marred by
violence and the count by accusations of fraud.

Two people died and four were wounded in the Dakhadai region in an
armed clash between supporters of two parties, United Russia and the
Union of Right Forces. Another party leader was wounded in an attack,
and one candidate has vanished without trace.

The election was held under a proportional representation system based
on party lists, with deputies no longer being elected from single
constituencies.

Sociologist Zaid Abdulagatov said the new system was a positive
development as it meant voters were no longer merely casting their
ballot for a candidate from their own ethnic group, but for a party
and its programme.

"If, after the election, people will not talk about how many members
of parliament come from which nationality, we can call that progress,"
Abdulagatov said. "But I doubt we will be able to get away from that."

The Union of Right Forces also complained that the new rules were
manipulated so that they were disqualified from the election.

With the stated aim of preserving a spread of candidates from across
the republic, the lists of each party were required to contain
representatives from all 53 districts of Dagestan. Any party that did
not represent all the regions was struck from the ballot.

This is what happened to the Union of Right Forces after three of its
candidates in the Khasavyurt region unexpectedly pulled out. Some
party members said the withdrawals had been deliberately engineered to
remove their group from the election.

Most of the new deputies have an allegiance to one or other of the two
most powerful politicians in Dagestan, President Mukhu Aliev and the
mayor of the capital Makhachkala, Said Amirov.

The deputies from the Patriots of Russia, which has its electoral base
in southern Dagestan, are close to Amirov. Party leader Eduard
Khidirov was wounded in an assassination attempt during the campaign
and is still in hospital.

Patriots of Russia, the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic
Party – which did not win any seats – all alleged fraud after the
elections, saying that the results given by the electoral commission
diverged sharply from the data collected by their own poll observers.

Fikret Rajabov, a candidate for Patriots of Russia, said that his
observers estimated that the party had won 18 per cent of the vote and
this was backed up by local electoral officials – but that the party
ended up with only seven per cent.

As an example, he said that in the Akhtyn region local electoral
records had awarded Patriots of Russia 3,500 votes, but the eventual
number of votes they were given was 1,089 votes.

Rajabov alleged that President Aliev intervened in the matter, a
recount was conducted, and the results adjusted in favour of Patriots
of Russia.

The Communist Party has traditionally done well in Dagestan and its
local officials are indignant at the final results of the elections.

A group of Moscow lawyers representing the Communist Party visited
Dagestan after the elections and concluded that 25,000 votes had been
stolen in just ten towns.

"They want to knock us out on the eve of the elections to the
[Russian] State Duma," said Mahmud Mahmudov, first secretary of the
Communist Party of Dagestan and a deputy in the Duma. "It looks as
though this was an order from Moscow, and it was carried out with
great enthusiasm in the republic."

Mahmudov said that he had evidence of stuffing of ballot boxes, voting
machines being changed shortly before the polls opened, and groups of
young men travelling the republic and voting more than once for the
governing party.

"In the Akhtyn region they sent two buses with OMON [armed police]
officers who sealed off the electoral commission building, and
representatives of opposition parties were not allowed to watch the
count," Mahmudov said. "The local electoral commissions were supposed
to bring in the voting records but they put them to one side and gave
totally different figures."

"The whole process was controlled by an official from the White House
[the Dagestani government] who made the electoral commission give the
required results."

"At the moment we are restraining our angry people, but if our lawful
demands are not met, we will hold a demonstration."

The Central Electoral Commission has declined to discuss specific
complaints – although United Russia did lose six per cent of its total
vote in a recount.

Another expert, Tagir Muslimov from Dagestan’s Centre of
Ethno-Political Research, predicted that the new parliament would try
to preserve vested interests and the status quo – in opposition to the
president’s efforts to crack down on corruption.

"Civil society is not a source of authority for us and the elite and
big business just re-elect themselves," he said.

"The president promised to battle against clan structures and
corruption, to bring in new people and to make changes. Some shifts
have taken place – some clans have moved further away [from power],
but other clans have got closer."

By Musa Musayev in Makhachkala

Musa Musayev is a correspondent for Severny Kavkaz newspaper in
Dagestan. Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Caucasus Reporting
Serv