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the Nenets Autonomous Okrug was the only region in Russia where the majority of residents voted against the amendments to the Constitution. “For” – 43,78% of voters against, of 55.25%. Just vote in the NAO participated in the order of 21 thousand citizens. The turnout was 58%. According to the surveyed experts, a protest vote in the region due to the recent attempts to merge the district with the Arkhangelsk region.

CEC Head Ella Pamfilova said that the vote in the Nenets Autonomous district proves the validity of the outcome of the campaign. “We have the results of the voting do not comment, but only fix. So there (NAO) it was voted on by the people. The results indicate that the reliability of the counting of the vote,” she said. And the head of the HRC Valery Fadeev recalled: in 1993, against the adoption of the Constitution were 17 regions, but now only one. He also stressed that the serious violations in the vote on the amendment, the HRC has not revealed.

the Current protest vote in the NAO – an echo of the may events, when the head of the Arkhangelsk region Alexander Cibacalcin and Nenets Autonomous district Yuri Bezdomny signed a Memorandum of intent to unite the regions. It was assumed that the referendum on unification will be held this year, but a possible merger had caused in the NAO the protests of residents, and the project was frozen.

Interviewed by “MK”, experts believe that the inhabitants of the NAO now vote against the merger with Arkhangelsk region. “I think that there the authorities simply did not have the administrative resource, on which to rely. Excited at the prospects of merging with poor Arkhangelsk region, the local elite did not want to play along with Moscow”, – said political analyst Abbas Gallyamov.

This opinion is shared by political analyst Alexander Kynev. “This is only an attempt to eliminate the district. I think it’s important how many people came to vote “against”, where were provided with control observers.”

Expert Yevgeny Minchenko believes that “this vote is not against the Constitution and against specific initiatives on the unification of the NAO and the Arkhangelsk region and the form in which it was offered. It was impromptu, without prior discussion with the public. And this signal a protest vote. Residents show dissatisfaction with the initiative of the merger.”