Russian party claims vote rigging in southern Russia

13.03.2007 Editor

Dagestan, 12 March, Caucasus Times: The leaders of the regional branch of the Patriots of Russia Party maintain that there has been mass ballot-rigging, Nargiz Mukailova, a proxy of the party’s campaign headquarters, has told The Caucasus Times.

“We have protocols with data from 13 districts of Dagestan. But the electoral commission protocols posted on the website of the Central Electoral Commission reduced the number of votes cast for our party by almost 29,000,” she said.

“We analysed this and showed in which districts we lost votes for unknown reasons. We believe that our votes were deliberately lowered by 10 per cent. We sent a letter to Dagestani President Mukhu Aliyev and hope that he will seek to redress the situation and protect our voters’ constitutional rights. We sent similar letters to Aleksandr Veshnyakov, chairman of the Russian Central Electoral Commission; Magomed Khalitov, chairman of Dagestan’s electoral commission; and to Dagestani Prosecutor Igor Tkachev.”

Sergey Svetlov, Mahachkala, Caucasus Times

Editor

The “Free Eurasia” project is an independent media platform based in Prague, with an ambitious mission to provide the regions of Central Asia and the Caucasus with high-quality, objective and timely information in their national languages. We unite the expertise of editors and journalists working in Tajik, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Circassian, Avar and Russian to break the monopoly of state-run Russian-language media and amplify the voices of local communities. Direction Our work focuses on comprehensive coverage of social, political, economic and cultural developments in Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as the issues facing diasporas in Russia, Turkey, China and other countries. We produce news, analytical articles, video reports, podcasts, interviews and journalistic investigations. Special attention is paid to topics rarely addressed by state media: human rights violations, corruption, ethnic and cultural identity, migration and international relations. We strive to engage audiences of all ages, with a particular emphasis on young people and residents of remote regions, offering them digital content in their native languages. Goal Our main goal is to promote the development and sustainability of independent media in Central Asia and the Caucasus. We aim to strengthen the region’s informational sovereignty by expanding access to truthful sources and raising media literacy. At the same time, we support the development of national languages as key elements of identity and cultural heritage, encouraging public discussion and engagement. The project seeks to become a catalyst for building a strong civil society and defending democratic values, helping to train new professional journalists and fostering international cooperation.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply