At the initiative of the nonprofit Center for European Initiatives (CEI) and Russia's largest election monitor Golos, 20 monitors have arrived from Russia to observe the parliamentary ballot round of Estonia's presidential election.
20 observers arrive from Russia for presidential election
29th August 2016, 18:54
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«Our aim is to acquaint Russian colleagues with the head of state election tradition in a parliamentary democracy and compare different political cultures in European countries and the territory of the former Soviet Union. We invited to Estonia primarily political scientists and journalists for whom comparative political analysis offers the most interest,» CEI director Jevgeni Kristafovits said.
The observers come from the Mari El and Karelian regions, Chelyabinsk, Krasnodar, Kostroma, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Vologda, Ivanovo, Samara, Novosibirsk, Pskov, St. Petersburg and Moscow.
«Our observers take the most interest in the Estonian experience -- how the parliament and possibly also local government representatives elect the head of state. In the Russian context this is comparable, for example, to the new procedure of mayoral elections in which a direct vote is no longer held. It is important to us to find out how such a system of executive power formation has affected the political situation in other countries,» leader of the Golos association Liliya Shabanova said.
Golos was established in 2000 to protect the electoral rights of citizens and unites observers from 40 regions of Russia. It was banned in July 2016 at the Russian Justice Ministry's initiative as a «foreign agent». A sister organization continues to work in Lithuania, supporting the training of Russian election monitors and providing them with the necessary legal assistance.