De Rebus Antiquis Et Novis again has a great post detailing some of the dirty campaign tactics being used against the opposition parties in the run up to the legislative elections on December 2nd.

I really recommend checking out his post and reading through the examples he has stumbled across, but this is my favorite from the batch:

In the town Balashov, Saratov region, people who planned to vote for Spravedlivaya Rossiya (Fair Russia) receive letters with condolences on the death of their relatives. All their relatives were alive. The fake letters were “signed” by Zinaida Samsonova, the candidate of Fair Russia.

He also notes a recent poll:

55.9% of the interviewees said that they will vote for the United Russia. 5.8% support the Communist Party, 4.7% support Liberal-Democratic Party, 4.9% will vote for the Fair Russia. The threshold for eligibility to win seats in Duma is 7%.

Two things should be noted about this. First, under the new electoral rules, there has to be at least two parties represented in the Duma. If only one party passes a 7% threshold, then the second place party with the strongest showing is awarded seats in the Duma. I am not sure how may seats that party will actually get, but obviously too few to be an real opposition. However, it does also allow for the Kremlin to maintain a “two-party” democratic facade.

Second, my Russian is pretty rusty but I scanned the linked article regarding the poll. The numbers described in De Rebus’ post did not quite add up, so I wanted to see what the article said directly.  The article notes that 13.3% of the respondents were “undecided.” If you take all the totals listed in the article (55.9%, 5.8%, 4.7%, 4.9%, and 13.3%), 15% is still unaccounted for? If I remember correctly, there are 11 parties cleared to run in this election. Is this 15% spread amongst the remaining 7 parties?

The article also notes that the poll shows party support amongst those respondents who were “likely to vote.” In that grouping, United Russia receives 63.8%, the Communists 7.3%, Fair Russia (Kremlin-created opposition party) at 6%, and the Liberal-Democratic Party at 5.2%. This may be a more realistic assessment of party-support than that listed in De Rebus’ post.

Hopefully De Rebus will continue to post the updates regarding the election environment. He’s on the ground and in a unique position to bring these things to light to the Western and English-reading observers. This is even more important considering that the OSCE will not be observing these elections and are unable to comment on the pre-election campaign environment.