Golos statement on non-partisan election monitoring on single election day of September 10

Golos movement for protection of voters’ rights is monitoring elections in accordance with the Declaration of Global Principles for Non-partisan Election Observation and Monitoring by Citizen Organizations (hereinafter “Declaration”) and Code of Conduct for Non-partisan Citizen Election Observers and Monitors (hereinafter “Code”) that were vowed and declared on April 3, 2012 at the United Nations, and signed by over 160 non-partisan organizations from more than 70 countries. 

We call on any candidates and political parties committed to honest and free elections and observance of citizens’ voting rights to give us an opportunity to continue our non-partisan monitoring by providing us with status of election commission member in advisory capacity or election monitor on the single election day of September 10, 2017.

Up until 2016, opportunity to carry out non-partisan election monitoring in full accordance with the Declaration and Code could be realized in the Russian Federation through representatives of nonpartisan independent media. In 2016, amendments to the Russian legislation were introduced, which anchored the media representatives’ rights to be present at polling stations to their employee tenure and the type of employee relations with the editorial office, thus discriminating against the vast majority. Due to these changes, a significant number of public election monitors won’t be able to exercise this right.

We regret to acknowledge that in Russia of today, the public associations, which nominate no candidates, are legally relieved of their right to exercise non-partisan election monitoring, despite the fact that such rights of public associations are proclaimed in Article 14 “Status and authority of national election monitors” of the Convention on Standards of Democratic Elections, Voting Rights and Freedoms of the Commonwealth of Independent Nation States (signed in Chișinău on October 7, 2002).

Article 18 of the Declaration specifies that in the absence of opportunity to be accredited and granted access to polling venues, “non-partisan observation and monitoring organizations may nonetheless decide to partially deploy observers/monitors, gather information from outside polling stations and/or other facilities, or otherwise compensate for restrictive conditions, while identifying the restrictions, their causes and probable impact on their activities.”

Under current conditions, the Golos movement will send a number of its representatives as election monitors, representing any candidate or party that provide us with this opportunity, under condition that the candidate or party will respect the non-partisan nature of our representatives, will allow them to remain politically neutral in all their activities regarding the election process (including monitoring, observation, informing the voters, etc.), and will respect their right to refrain from public expression of sympathy or dislike of any candidate and/or political party seeking election (including, in the process of notifying the authorities of violations of laws, regulations and voting rights), just like it’s codified in Article 1 of the Code.

Any attempts to coerce our representative to violate the principles of non-partisanship will be seen as violation of the terms of our cooperation and will lead to its termination.

We make this statement in strict adherence to the provisions presented in Article 22 of the Declaration, specifically: “at any time that the endorsing organization deems it necessary to depart from any of the terms of this Declaration or the accompanying Code of Conduct, in order to conduct non-partisan election observation/monitoring in the spirit of this Declaration and to meet national conditions, that organization will explain why it was necessary to do so in its public statements…”

Technically our solution is a slight deviation from provision 2 of the Election Monitor Pledge, cited in the Code, where the monitor states that he is not “an activist for any candidate, political party,” etc.

Summing up and taking into account the aforemention terms of our cooperation with parties and candidates, our election monitors will carry out non-partisan election monitoring in the spirit of the Declaration and in full accordance with the rights for such digression, literally specified in the Declaration for such extraordinary situations.

Get in touch with us by email: golos@golosinfo.org