United Russia decided after regional elections to reward successful regions with grants for social programs and at the same time punish those where the party performed poorly. The article explains how aid depends on vote share, why the CEC sees it as akin to voter bribery, and what sanctions have already followed for Tver Oblast. It also gives details on protest voting and pressure on voters in Tver.
Based on the results of the regional elections, United Russia is financially rewarding successful work and punishing losers. Party sanctions in the form of warnings were imposed on the governors of the Tver and Smolensk regions for the party’s defeat in the regional capitals. In the regions where United Russia received more than 50%, financial assistance will be sent.Seven of the nine constituent entities of the federation where legislative assemblies were elected will receive grants for social programs. The size of the grants will be directly proportional to the number of votes, i.e., the more people voted for United Russia, the more money the region receives. The largest amount – 1 million rubles each – will go to Tatarstan and Kabardino-Balkaria.
Central Election Commission representative Yevgeny Kolyushin believes that such a practice is nothing other than vote-buying. But at the moment this initiative cannot be condemned by law, since the idea of grants was announced only after the elections. However, in the next elections such actions can be prosecuted by law.
United Russia punishes the “guilty” regions. For example, in the Tver region the Communists won 49%, while United Russia got only 29%. After that, the secretaries of the Tver regional and city political councils, Andrey Epishin and Liliya Kornienko, were asked to step down. Meanwhile, the failure in Tver is explained by protest voting: heads of state institutions forced employees to take part in early voting, and three days before the election the opposition television channel was shut down.