Moscow Warns Regions Any Use of Ethnic or Religious Issues in Elections is ‘Impermissible’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 19 – Moscow’s Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs (FADN) has sent a memo to all federal subjects reminding them that any use of ethnicity or religion in election campaigns is “not permissible” and that they can use a variety of provisions in Russian law against any individual, group or party that violates that principle.

            According to the Nazaccent portal, the document specifies that it is impermissible “to call for voting for or against a candidate solely on the basis of nationality or make public statements about the inadmissibility of the participation of certain candidates on the basis of their ethnicity or religious affiliation (nazaccent.ru/content/45843-v-fadn-rf-napomnili-o-nedopustimosti/).

            For such actions, which the memorandum that has been distributed in the form of a brochure says are a form of illegal “incitement of hatred” on these grounds, Russian law establishes administrative and criminal liability up to fines of 600,000 rubles, forced labor for up to five years, and imprisonment for as long as six years.

            Russian commentators have frequently suggested that one of the aspects of elections that Kremlin officials are most concerned about is the possibility that candidates or parties will use them to exacerbate tensions between members of Russia’s various religious and ethnic communities.

            But the Moscow authorities have always been careful about how they talk about this possibility given that any such commentaries may have the effect of leading some groups not to avoid using ethnic or religious appeals but rather making it more likely that they will do so by suggesting a strategy such political activists may not have considered.

            This time around, in advance of the September 26 Duma elections, Moscow has limited its declarations on this point to this single FADN memorandum, an indication that the Russian leadership is worried about both the possibility that ethnic and religious issues will be raised and the certainty that any discussion of that possibility could further exacerbate the situation.