MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's top election official, facing calls to resign over claims of violations in recent regional polls, will face questions from MPs in the lower house of the Russian parliament on Friday.
Each of the four parties in the State Duma will be able to ask Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov five questions about the roughly 7,000 regional polls held in 75 Russian regions on October 11. The ruling United Russia party won the elections by a landslide.
On October 14, three opposition parties - the Communists, the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and the Kremlin-backed A Just Russia - left the State Duma in protest against the polls. Two of the parties have since returned to parliament, and the Communists announced on Wednesday they would also end their boycott.
Among other demands, LDPR and the Communists have called on Churov to resign.
"The election results must be canceled in all regions of the country, with new elections scheduled for March 2010. We should also re-elect electoral commissions all across the country and sack CEC head Churov," LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky said.
"We think that Churov must be sacked. He does not fulfill his duties," Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said.
A member of the Central Election Commission, Gennady Raikov, said Russian lawmakers have no authority over the top election official. Under the Russian legislature, the CEC chairman is elected by the 15 members of the commission. The Russian president appoints five of them, with the remaining 10 appointed by each of the two chambers of the Russian parliament.
"We are quite satisfied with our chairman," Raikov told RIA Novosti.
A Just Russia, which did not demand Churov's resignation, said they expected the election chief to answer a number of their questions.
"We plan to discuss preparations and the electoral process on the whole," said Alexander Babakov, a deputy State Duma speaker representing A Just Russia.
A top member of the ruling United Russia party said they would discuss with Churov over 400 reports of violations, allegedly committed by their election rivals.
The opposition has also demanded a meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev to discuss electoral violations. The meeting, initially scheduled for October 27, could be held this week.
