Reports

The Single Voting Day in Russia was conducted amid the ongoing war against Ukraine and restrictions on fundamental freedoms at home. Freedom of speech and expression are under attack as independent voices and sources of information have been systematically shut down. Simultaneously, the election conditions were fundamentally unfair, as candidates were blocked from participating.

Significant violations of national legislation and the fundamental principles of holding fair and democratic elections during the referendum, including depriving observers of the opportunity to witness the vote count, does not give grounds to trust the election results announced by the CEC.

For the first time in the history of any EU Member State, Orbán’s government invited dozens of friendly politicians, journalists and civil society activists whose aim was to endorse the elections. Those friendly observers – among them members of the European Parliament and of the PACE of the Council of Europe - praised the conduct of the parliamentary elections in Hungary and made clearly political statements in support of Fidesz and Orbán.

The constitutional referendum took place against the backdrop of a profound socio-political crisis that began immediately after the 2020 presidential election and the pervasive atmosphere of repression targeting those disloyal to the authorities, as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections issued their preliminary report of their expert mission to this referendum, examining the lack of any electoral reforms since the 2020 post-election crisis; the intransparent manner in which the draft amendments were presented and discussed publicly without outside critical involvement; the numerous violations of international standards and national legislation in preparing and conducting the referendum. There was no independent monitoring of all types of voting or the vote count due to the CEC restrictions on the number of observers at polling stations.