September 2018 Primorsky Krai gubernatorial election


The Primorsky Krai gubernatorial election were held in September 2018.
In the first round, held on 9 September, none of the candidates received an absolute majority. To the second round, which was scheduled for 16 September, came the incumbent Acting Governor Andrey Tarasenko, nominated by the United Russia, and Andrey Ishchenko, nominated by the Communist Party.
The second round of election caused a wide public response due to the conflict situation that arose when counting the votes cast for the candidates in the second round. In the process of receiving the results from the polling stations all the time with a margin of about 5% was in the lead Ishchenko, but after processing more than 99% of the protocols was that more votes Tarasenko. According to the full preliminary statistics, Tarasenko got 49,55% and Ishchenko 48,06% votes.
There were allegations of severe fraud, so that the representatives of the Central Election Commission from Moscow had to visit Primorsky Krai and check the situation. On 19 September, the CEC recommended invalidating the election results. On 20 September, the Regional Election Commission followed this recommendation and officially annulled the results. The new elections should now be held in approximately three months.

Previous events

Previous gubernatorial election in Primorsky Krai were held on 14 September 2014, Vladimir Miklushevsky was elected as Governor. On 4 October 2017, he resigned, and Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Andrey Tarasenko as Acting Governor.

Candidates

Five candidates were registered to participate in the election

Background

Three months before these elections, in June 2018, the government of Russia announced the very unpopular pension reform presuming a gradual increase in the retirement age by five years. The planned reform has provoked countrywide protests. For this reason, the elections proceeded on a background of an aversion to the governmental party “United Russia” as to the betrayers.
In the second round, the anti-reform forces were consolidated around Ishchenko as a person not belonging to that party. So, despite Tarasenko has unequivocally won the first round, Ishchenko succeeded in obtaining a comparable number of votes in the second round.

Results

! style="text-align:left;" colspan="2" rowspan="2"| Candidate
! style="text-align:left;" rowspan="2" colspan="2"| Party
! colspan="2"| 1st round
! colspan="2"| 2nd round
! width="75"|Votes
! width="30"|%
! width="75"|Votes
! width="30"|%
Official results published by the Primorsky Krai Electoral Commission

Fairness of election

After counting 95% of the protocols of the second round, the candidate from the Communist party Ishchenko won by a significant margin — 51.6% against 45.8%. After processing 99% of the protocols, the ratio changed in favor of the incumbent Acting Governor Andrey Tarasenko — 49.02% against 48.56%. In particular, according to the CEC website, if we compare the results after processing 98.77% of the protocols and after processing 99.03% of the protocols, the results of Ishchenko fell by 5 votes, and Tarasenko grew by 13,595 votes.
Representatives of the Communist party announced massive fraud in favor of Tarasenko in the vote count. Andrey Ishchenko declared falsifications in the cities Vladivostok, Artyom, Nakhodka and Ussuriysk and declared hunger strike. In addition, 13 protocols are still being held and not published in one of the districts of Vladivostok. In turn, the election headquarters of Andrey Tarasenko accused rivals of bribing voters.
On the night after the elections, during the counting of votes in the Territorial Election Commission of the Sovetsky district of Vladivostok, firefighters broke in. They said there was a call, that the fire alarm went off. They demanded that members of the electoral commission and observers leave the polling station. At the same time, there was no smoke or other traces of fire in the building. Members of the electoral commission were forced to leave the building, leaving the electoral documents. Subsequently, on 18 September, the Regional Election Commission canceled the results of voting at 12 polling stations accountable to the Sovetsky district Territorial Election Commission. A similar situation has developed in other cities of Primorye. For example, the Territorial Election Commission building of the Ussuriysk urban district was cordoned off by police officers. When the member of Legislative Assembly of Primorsky Krai Anatoly Dolgachev and member of the State Duma Yury Afonin tried to get there, they were told that it is impossible, as "the lock is broken".

Annulation of the results

On 17 September, Chairwoman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova asked the candidates to provide the CEC with materials on possible violations and said that the results of the election will not be approved until the CEC examines all complaints.
On 19 September in Primorsky Krai came to a special commission of the CEC to verify complaints of violations in the election.
Since the election of the Governor is within the jurisdiction of the Regional Election Commission, the Central Election Commission cannot influence them, but it can make recommendations to the REC. On 19 September, the CEC unanimously recommended to recognize the results of the gubernatorial election invalid. The final decision of annulation was accordingly taken by the Regional Election Commission on 20 September.