Election falsification and its limits: a regional comparison ahead of the presidential elections 
By Aleksandr Kynev, Moscow

Golos

Whether or not the presidential elections are completed in one or two election rounds essentially depends not on the true poll ratings of the candidates, but on how many extra votes are given to the main candidate and how many are taken away from the others. By using the election results from 4th December, Russia can be divided into three regions with varying potential for manipulation and protest. The result of the upcoming presidential election on 4th March partly depends on the turnout in the group of the “protest regions” with 52.2 million voters, where, according to the official results, “United Russia” received less than 42 % of the vote: these regions are mainly in Northern Russia, Siberia, the Urals and the Far East. Additionally, the relationship between the durability of administrative resources and the electoral control in the “regions in mid-table” (the regions of Moscow, Rostov, Voronezh and Stavropol) with over 30 million voters will also play an important role [Read more].

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Impressum
This newsletter is produced by European Exchange (www.european-exchange.org) in cooperation with Golos Association (www.golos.org) in Moscow, Russland Analysen (http://www.laender-analysen.de/russland/) and Heinrich Boell Foundation (www.boell.de). All election reports will be published bi-weekly in the periodicals Russland Analysen (in German) and the Russian Analytical Digest (in English, http://www.res.ethz.ch/analysis/rad/ ).

European Exchange, Berlin is supporting the development of civil societies in the eastern neighbour states of the European Union and is cooperating since 2007 with networks of domestic election monitoring in Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. The European Exchange is holder of the annual German-Ukrainian conference Kiev Dialogue, is co-initiator of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum and member of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership.