Latest news with #Golos
DW
11-07-2025
- Politics
- DW
Russia's election watchdog and voter rights group disbands – DW – 07/11/2025
Golos spent 25 years campaigning for voters' rights and monitoring elections in Russia. As pressure from authorities mounts, the watchdog is shutting down. The Russian independent election monitoring group Golos (Voice) has announced that it is ceasing operations 25 years after its inception. In a statement published on its website, the organization said it had been forced to take this step amid mounting pressure from Russian authorities and Golos members, who face increasing danger. Golos describes itself as an "all-Russian social movement for the defense of voters' rights." Its statement said the group's disbanding was linked to the sentencing of Golos co-chair Grigory Melkonyants to five years in prison by a Moscow court in May. The court found Melkonyants guilty of cooperating with the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), a foreign NGO blacklisted as "undesirable" in Russia. The statement says "the court equates Golos with ENEMO, despite the fact that ENEMO has never observed elections or conducted any activity in Russia." The watchdog fears that charges similar to those brought against Melkonyants could also be made against other Golos members, or those who have sought advice or legal assistance from the group. Golos insists that it has no connection to ENEMO and says the prosecution of Melkonyants is politically motivated and intended to silence election observers in Russia. Golos was founded in 2000 and was among the first independent initiatives in post-Soviet Russia to focus on election monitoring. Inspired by the upheavals of the 1990s, Lilia Shibanova took charge of the organization and was soon joined by other human rights activists and lawyers, including Grigory Melkonyants. From the outset, Golos observed growing state support for the ruling party, particularly after United Russia was founded in 2001. It also documented restrictions on independent election monitors starting in 2004. Golos made use of new digital tools to record violations and analyze election fraud while also developing services and platforms to increase election transparency. This included an interactive website mapping violations across Russia, allowing election observers and voters to post messages. Golos gained Russia-wide recognition amid the 2011 anti-fraud protests in the context of the State Duma election, and as a driver of the "Vote Against Crooks and Thieves" campaign initiated by opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Golos came under state scrutiny after Russia passed its "foreign agents" law in 2012. Just one year later, Russia blacklisted the organization as a "foreign agent" because of an award it was to receive from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee — an award that Golos ultimately declined. Russian authorities repeatedly searched the Golos offices, confiscating computers and threatening the organization's workers across the country. Because Golos members were listed as "foreign agents," they were banned from participating in elections. The organization remained on the "foreign agents" list although it received no financial support from abroad. In 2016, Golos was dissolved at the request of the Justice Ministry, but the group continued operating as an unregistered association. In 2021, Golos was again classified as a "foreign agent" and placed on a list of unregistered social associations. Even so, Golos continued coordinating the work of election observers, most recently during the 2024 presidential vote. Security forces, however, persecuted numerous Golos members, including Shibanova, Roman Udot, Melkonyants and Artem Vashenkov. All except Melkonyants eventually went into exile. The end of Golos deals "a very hard blow against independent civil society, fundamental rights in Russia and free elections in Russia," said Stefanie Schiffer, who chairs the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE). Schiffer said the public still wanted independent election monitors to operate within Russia. There is a "deeply rooted and entirely justified" need for people to "manage their own affairs," Schiffer said. And now election monitoring will no longer exist in Russia in its current form. "The closure of Golos is very sad news," the journalist-turned-politician Yekaterina Duntsova, who wanted to run for the presidency in 2024 but was barred from doing so, told DW. "It is one of the few organizations that consistently advocated for civil election monitoring." Golos established a culture of election monitoring in Russia, said Duntsova, who is confident that the group's experience and insights will be passed on to a future election-monitoring movement. "As far as elections are concerned, the situation in Russia is difficult," she said. "As soon as it changes, there will be new initiatives." Udot, the former Golos co-chair, told DW. that election observers had continued to work in Russia, despite increasing repression, bans on rallies and shady election result reporting. "The organization of civil control will suffer," Udot said, "but the driving force will not disappear." Udot said he was confident that the legacy of Golos and its standards would live on and observers would be able to work in Russia again at some point. "Elections are held, and observers remain," he said. "It may sound strange, but we will be back." Ivan Shukshin, a former Golos member in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia who continues to monitor elections from abroad, told DW that the organization's disbanding will undermine connections within civil society and increase its fragmentation. "The regime has achieved its goal," Shukshin said. "Golos has been destroyed." He expects that only pseudo-opposition parties permitted to participate in elections by Russian authorities will monitor polls. "There will no longer be a coordination center, but the work on the ground will continue, municipal candidates will be assisted, and monitoring will continue, albeit without a common platform," Shukshin said. He doubts that a new organization like Golos can emerge in the current conditions. "There will be no nationwide structure, and, as long as there is no regime change, nothing of the sort will emerge, though there will be individual initiatives," Shukshin said, who continues to analyze Russia elections from abroad. "This is my country. Even if things keep getting worse, we have to keep an eye on everything. So that there is no vacuum." .
CNN
11-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
What the firing and death of a transport minister reveals about Putin's Russia
As scattered details of the apparent suicide of Russia's former transport minister Roman Starovoit trickled in via state media on Monday, one stood out. Near his body, the Kommersant newspaper reported, investigators found a Glock pistol that Starovoit had been given as an award. In October 2023, in his previous job as governor of Russia's Kursk region, Starovoit was pictured in a local news article being presented with a velvet-boxed firearm from the region's interior ministry for his role in maintaining security there. Fast forward 21 months and his death came amid reports he may have been doing the exact opposite. Two sources told Reuters he was suspected of being involved in a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars earmarked for border defenses. Defenses that would undoubtedly have come in useful when Ukrainian troops launched a surprise invasion there last August. There's no way of knowing if it was the same pistol, and it's not clear yet if the corruption case had anything to do with his firing (no official reason was given) or his death. But the image it creates of a state-sponsored self-destruction, of a once rising star in Vladimir Putin's political elite dead near his Tesla, with the spoils of his former loyalty, is especially poignant in today's Russia. More than three years into Putin's unprovoked war on Ukraine, the Kremlin's political vice is tightening again. Fealty to the regime is no guarantee of safety, and there are fewer places to hide from increasingly brutal consequences. For Russians with long memories, old fears are rising. 'There's a smell of Stalinism from this story,' wrote exiled Russian dissident Ilya Yashin on X. And that stench is permeating beyond the halls of the transport ministry. With Putin now settled into the second year of his fifth presidential term, the Kremlin has in recent weeks been moving to shut down any remaining threats. In mid-June Russia's supreme court banned the opposition 'Civic Initiative' party, which had unsuccessfully attempted to field the only anti-war candidate – Boris Nadezhdin – in the 2024 presidential race. The court accused it of failing to take part in elections for seven years. 'It's a tragic farce situation,' party leader Andrey Nechaev told supporters on Telegram last month. 'First they ban us from participating in elections for fabricated reasons, then they accuse us of not participating in them,' he said. Independent election monitoring, already on its last legs in Russia, may now also be a thing of the past. On Tuesday, Golos, Russia's only remaining independent election watchdog, announced it was closing down. The decision, it said, came after its co-chair Grigory Melkonyants was sentenced to five years in prison in late May, after a court found him guilty of running activities for European election monitoring network ENEMO, deemed by Russia to be an 'undesirable organization.' Golos denies the charge, but said the verdict put all its participants at risk of criminal prosecution. The Golos case, opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza argues in a Washington Post op-ed, smacks of another Putin trademark: holding long-term grievances and meting out delayed retribution. Kara-Murza believes that Golos' original sin was not in 2024, but in documenting widespread parliamentary election violations in 2011, the year Putin announced he would return to the presidency after a brief hiatus as prime minister. The protests that followed were the biggest since the fall of the Soviet Union. 'It was a real scare for Putin, his moment of greatest weakness,' writes Kara-Murza. 'And he never forgave those who, as he put it, attempted a 'color revolution' in Russia. This is the real reason for Grigory Melkonyants's prison sentence.' And it's not just politics where the pressure is rising. On Saturday, Konstantin Strukov, the head of Yuzhuralzoloto, one of Russia's largest gold mining companies, was arrested while trying to leave the country on his private jet, according to Kommersant. A few days earlier, Russia's prosecutor general had launched a legal bid to nationalize the company, alleging Strukov had used a regional government position to acquire control of the company, among other violations. If the post-Soviet years saw a wholesale redistribution of property away from the Russian state through rapid privatization, the Ukraine war years are characterized by the reverse. Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, calls it 'the biggest redistribution of wealth in Russia in three decades.' And the purpose, she says, is 'to increase loyalty to Putin.' And there's no attempt to mask the scent of Soviet-style control here. In March, Russia's prosecutor general reported to Putin that companies worth 2.4 trillion rubles (over $30bn) had been transferred to the state, part of an effort 'to not allow the use of private enterprises against state interests.' Roman Starovoit's death had echoes and notable differences to that of Gorbachev's interior minister-turned-coup plotter Boris Pugo, who killed himself in August 1991 when his rebellion collapsed and he faced arrest. In the chaos of the early 90s, details leaked out freely about his death, his wife's attempted suicide and even the notes they left. The almost airtight information zone of Putin's presidency makes it much harder to discern what exactly happened to mister Starovoit, and why. But for Russians, it's a graphic reminder that wealth and power carry increasing risks, as the Kremlin closes ranks for what it sees as a long-term confrontation with the West.
CNN
11-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
What the firing and death of a transport minister reveals about Putin's Russia
As scattered details of the apparent suicide of Russia's former transport minister Roman Starovoit trickled in via state media on Monday, one stood out. Near his body, the Kommersant newspaper reported, investigators found a Glock pistol that Starovoit had been given as an award. In October 2023, in his previous job as governor of Russia's Kursk region, Starovoit was pictured in a local news article being presented with a velvet-boxed firearm from the region's interior ministry for his role in maintaining security there. Fast forward 21 months and his death came amid reports he may have been doing the exact opposite. Two sources told Reuters he was suspected of being involved in a scheme to embezzle millions of dollars earmarked for border defenses. Defenses that would undoubtedly have come in useful when Ukrainian troops launched a surprise invasion there last August. There's no way of knowing if it was the same pistol, and it's not clear yet if the corruption case had anything to do with his firing (no official reason was given) or his death. But the image it creates of a state-sponsored self-destruction, of a once rising star in Vladimir Putin's political elite dead near his Tesla, with the spoils of his former loyalty, is especially poignant in today's Russia. More than three years into Putin's unprovoked war on Ukraine, the Kremlin's political vice is tightening again. Fealty to the regime is no guarantee of safety, and there are fewer places to hide from increasingly brutal consequences. For Russians with long memories, old fears are rising. 'There's a smell of Stalinism from this story,' wrote exiled Russian dissident Ilya Yashin on X. And that stench is permeating beyond the halls of the transport ministry. With Putin now settled into the second year of his fifth presidential term, the Kremlin has in recent weeks been moving to shut down any remaining threats. In mid-June Russia's supreme court banned the opposition 'Civic Initiative' party, which had unsuccessfully attempted to field the only anti-war candidate – Boris Nadezhdin – in the 2024 presidential race. The court accused it of failing to take part in elections for seven years. 'It's a tragic farce situation,' party leader Andrey Nechaev told supporters on Telegram last month. 'First they ban us from participating in elections for fabricated reasons, then they accuse us of not participating in them,' he said. Independent election monitoring, already on its last legs in Russia, may now also be a thing of the past. On Tuesday, Golos, Russia's only remaining independent election watchdog, announced it was closing down. The decision, it said, came after its co-chair Grigory Melkonyants was sentenced to five years in prison in late May, after a court found him guilty of running activities for European election monitoring network ENEMO, deemed by Russia to be an 'undesirable organization.' Golos denies the charge, but said the verdict put all its participants at risk of criminal prosecution. The Golos case, opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza argues in a Washington Post op-ed, smacks of another Putin trademark: holding long-term grievances and meting out delayed retribution. Kara-Murza believes that Golos' original sin was not in 2024, but in documenting widespread parliamentary election violations in 2011, the year Putin announced he would return to the presidency after a brief hiatus as prime minister. The protests that followed were the biggest since the fall of the Soviet Union. 'It was a real scare for Putin, his moment of greatest weakness,' writes Kara-Murza. 'And he never forgave those who, as he put it, attempted a 'color revolution' in Russia. This is the real reason for Grigory Melkonyants's prison sentence.' And it's not just politics where the pressure is rising. On Saturday, Konstantin Strukov, the head of Yuzhuralzoloto, one of Russia's largest gold mining companies, was arrested while trying to leave the country on his private jet, according to Kommersant. A few days earlier, Russia's prosecutor general had launched a legal bid to nationalize the company, alleging Strukov had used a regional government position to acquire control of the company, among other violations. If the post-Soviet years saw a wholesale redistribution of property away from the Russian state through rapid privatization, the Ukraine war years are characterized by the reverse. Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, calls it 'the biggest redistribution of wealth in Russia in three decades.' And the purpose, she says, is 'to increase loyalty to Putin.' And there's no attempt to mask the scent of Soviet-style control here. In March, Russia's prosecutor general reported to Putin that companies worth 2.4 trillion rubles (over $30bn) had been transferred to the state, part of an effort 'to not allow the use of private enterprises against state interests.' Roman Starovoit's death had echoes and notable differences to that of Gorbachev's interior minister-turned-coup plotter Boris Pugo, who killed himself in August 1991 when his rebellion collapsed and he faced arrest. In the chaos of the early 90s, details leaked out freely about his death, his wife's attempted suicide and even the notes they left. The almost airtight information zone of Putin's presidency makes it much harder to discern what exactly happened to mister Starovoit, and why. But for Russians, it's a graphic reminder that wealth and power carry increasing risks, as the Kremlin closes ranks for what it sees as a long-term confrontation with the West.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Independent Russian election monitoring group announces its closure after jailing of chairman
LONDON (Reuters) -Russia's only independent election watchdog said on Tuesday it was closing down after a court jailed its co-chairman for five years in May after finding him guilty of working with an "undesirable organisation". Golos, which means both "voice" and "vote" in Russian, first angered the authorities by publicising evidence of what it said was fraud in a 2011 parliamentary election that led to opposition protests. It also sharply criticised the conduct of presidential elections in 2012 and 2024. The authorities rejected those accusations of fraud and later designated Golos as a "foreign agent," a negative and burdensome designation with Soviet-era connotations of espionage. Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of the Golos movement, was sentenced to five years in a penal colony in May after being found guilty of working with an "undesirable organisation". He denied wrongdoing. Golos said on Tuesday that the jailing of Melkonyants - which it said was aimed at muzzling it - and the authorities' hostility to its activities had left it with no option but to close down even though it believed it had been providing a valuable non-partisan service to Russia. "This court decision leaves us no choice as it puts not only all participants of Golos at risk of criminal prosecution, but even those people who simply applied for counselling and legal assistance," the group said in a statement. "Justice, alas, does not always win - it must be fought for. And there is always a risk of losing. This time it happened like this."
The Hindu
08-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Russia's main election monitor closes amid crackdown
Russia's main independent voting observer Golos, which monitored the country's increasingly tightly controlled elections for 25 years, announced its closure on Tuesday (July 8, 2025), two months after its co-chair was jailed. Golos — which means "voice" in Russian — had for years meticulously recorded voting fraud across the huge country as elections under President Vladimir Putin's long rule turned into a ritual with little real choice. Mr. Putin faced no real competition at the last presidential election in 2024 and a domestic crackdown accompanying Moscow's Ukraine offensive has made voicing different views dangerous. "Justice, alas, does not always win — it must be fought for. And there is always the risk of losing. This is how it turned out this time," Golos said in an online statement, adding: "Goodbye." The group's co-chair Grigory Melkonyants, Russia's most respected independent election observer, was sentenced to five years in prison in May as part of the Kremlin's sweeping crackdown. Golos said it had "no choice" but to end its activity after the sentencing as it put its participants "at risk". Mr. Melkonyants, 44, was found guilty of working with a European election monitoring association outlawed as an "undesirable organisation" in Russia — which Golos has repeatedly denied. Golos has described itself as an "all Russian social movement in defence of voters' rights." It had observers across Russia's regions and had for years published online reports and maps of violations during elections and had a hotline to report voting fraud. It said Tuesday (July 8, 2025) it had shut down its regional offices. International observers have for years reported widespread voter intimidation, ballot stuffing and other election fraud in Russia.
