15 March: Vladimir Putin takes questions on the campaign trail. (c) Alexei Druzhinin/Zuma Press/PA Images. All rights reserved.Russia’s election monitoring community has formed in the years since independence. Today, it’s the Golos, Sonar and Citizen Observer movements that conduct independent (that is, non-partisan) observation, as well as other less well-known initiatives.
The federal authorities have done all they could in recent years to make independent electoral observation more difficult by law. The Golos association — the main monitoring force in the country — was registered as a “foreign agent”, basically paralysing its activities. (That said, a civic movement without foreign funding emerged to take on Golos’ tasks.)
For several years now, not a single civic organisation has had the right to send election observers to polling stations. The opportunities for other potential monitoring structures have also been severely weakened. For instance, only journalists from registered media organisations — and only those on permanent contract — can be present at polling stations.
