Every year the Russian Federation holds thousands of elections — primary, early, occasional, runoffs, etc. This article describes a great number of early election campaigns in Russia, reflects some discrepancies in the statistics, and also reveals some problems of an election process. The author touches upon the following points: 1) proves that early elections are called due to early termination of powers of the elected authorities and officials; 2) demonstrates a variety of the RF constituent entities’ legal approaches to determining of initiators of early election calling; 3) suggests an all-in-one approach to early election calling — by election committees. In her article the author uses statistical technique, comparative juridical and legal modelling methods. As a result the author proposes some amendments to the RF Federal Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right of Citizens of the Russian Federation to Participate in a Referendum”. The author assumes that it is the election committees that should call for early elections, and not the elected public authorities or local governments.
Early elections, election committees, early termination of powers.
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