Biography:
Vladimir Churov was born on March 17, 1953 in Leningrad. In 1973 he graduated from the Department of Journalism of Leningrad State University named after AA Zhdanov. In 1977 he completed his studies at the Department of Physics at the same university, and in 1990 he graduated from National University of Techno-Economic Studies.
In 1992 - 1995 he was chief specialist of the Foreign Relations Committee (FAC) of St. Petersburg City Hall.
In 1995 he was appointed deputy chairman of the Committee, head of regional cooperation department. He worked under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, who headed the FAC together with Aleksey Miller and Igor Sechin.
In 2000, retaining the post of deputy chairman of the FAC, Churov became head of international cooperation department.
In December 2003 he was elected to the State Duma as member of the Liberal Democratic Party. In the parliament he took the post of Deputy Chairman of the Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and relations with compatriots.
On March 26, 2007 he was elected unopposed to the Central Election Commission (CEC) as member representing the State Duma. The next day he was elected chairman of the CEC, succeeding Aleksander Veshnyakov.
On March 28, 2011 he was-elected for the second term.
Awards
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree
Order of Friendship, awarded in 2004
Medal of Merit for the Chechen Republic
Honourary Certificate of the Chairman of the State Duma
Honourary Certificate of the mayor and the governor of St. Petersburg.
Medal of Honour (South Ossetia, 2009)
Order of Commonwealth (IPA CIS, 2008)
Order of St. Anna, II degree (2009)
In 2010 Churov earned 3.5 million rubles. According to the tax declaration, he does not own vehicles and owns no housing. The 106.5 square meters apartment that his family lives in is only rented by Churov.
Churov is married. His wife’s name is Larissa. They have a son Yevgeny.
Source: Wikipedia
Dossier:
Churov was the only official in St. Petersburg City Hall Committee on Public Relations, who could come dressed as Ded Moroz (a Slavic character similar to Santa Claus) with a bag of presents for the New Year for his colleagues at work. Many believed that Churov did so with far-reaching plans, in case someone became a high-ranking official.
Source: Profile, April 2007
In June 2003 Churov was among the candidates for membership in the Federation Council of the Legislative Assembly of Leningrad Region. Damir Shadayev, a businessman, was then elected senator. However, already in July his election was overturned by Vyborgsky court. Media considered the removal of Shadaeva to stem from the fact that he allegedly did not suit the Kremlin, which wanted to see Churov as the senator from Leningrad. However, Vladimir Churov never became the senator. Later he was elected to the Duma on the LDPR party list. Shadaev was on the same list. Churov explained clearly his position as to being a party member: although he was elected as member of LDPR faction, he never entered the party and always remained nonpartisan.
Source: Vremya Novostei, June 30, 2003
During nearly three years in the Duma, the current head of the CEC did not make a single speech or report, a single deputy's request. He never took part in the discussion, made no comment concerning sessions of the Duma, and made no proposals on the agenda.
Source: The New Times, April 02, 2007
On January 30, 2007, just before Churov was elected to the CEC, the Duma passed an amendment to the electoral law in three readings under which the Central Election Commission members were no longer required to have a degree in law. In the debate in the Duma, it was suggested that the United Russia wanted to "push its men through to the CEC." United Russia justified the passed amendments in a very peculiar way. For example, Pavel Voronin, member of United Russia, claimed that "diploma in law is the easiest to obtain, one can simply buy it", and thus education meant nothing in this case.
Source: Kommersant, January 20, 2007
As it turned out, deputy Voronin’s words described well the situation at present. In April 2007, newly elected CEC Chairman Churov in an interview revealed many interesting details about the methods of election fraud. The same interview suggested that there were only two laws of Churov:
1. “Putin is always right.”
2. “We do cooperate with those who cooperate with us, and with those who do not cooperate with us, we also cooperate.”
In the interview Churov also pointed out one of his main positive skills, namely the ability to get along with anybody, especially when it comes to obtaining such a high post as chairman of the CEC. He showed a fatherly concern for keeping the electoral process away from reach of the cameras that would violate the secret ballot concept.
Source: Kommersant, April 9, 2007
In 2008 the Supreme Court review of the claim by SPS on the abolition of the results of December's State Duma elections ended in a scandal. Despite the protests of representatives of the Central Election Commission and the prosecution, the court obliged the Central Election Commission head Vladimir Churov to present his letter to the European Court of Human Rights in which he responded to the SPS complaint regarding withdrawal of party campaigning materials from circulation. From the letter it became clear that data on SPS, which the CEC provided to the European Court, did not coincide with that publicized by the Commission of the Supreme Court.
Source: Kommersant, July 03, 2008
According to the Federal State Statistics Service as of 2008, the Central Election Commission officials were the richest in Russia. The Central Election Commission had the highest wages among other federal government agencies. Federal State Statistics Service calculated that in the first quarter of 2008 average salary of civil servants there was 78,300 rubles. That is even more than in the presidential administration, where the average civil servant salary was 66,900 rubles, or in the government with average salary of 59.4 thousand rubles.
According to the report of the CEC, the funds allocated for the preparation of the presidential election and holding the election amounted to 4.9 billion rubles. Of these, nearly 4 billion rubles were spent on paying bonuses to employees and additional election commissions. Funds remaining unspent totaled to 200 million rubles. For comparison, for the 2004 election the budget allocated 4.3 billion rubles of which more than1.5 billion rubles were not spent and returned to the budget.
Source: Vedomosti, May 29, 2008
On October 11, 2009 in a number of Russian regions held elections. In Moscow there also were elections to the City Duma. In almost all regions United Russia won most seats in the legislative assemblies. Communist Party, LDPR, and Just Russia claimed numerous cases of fraud and demanded the resignation of Churov. The head of the CEC said that there were no gross violations during the elections and called the opposition move "politically motivated". After meeting with the opposition on October 26, 2009, President Dmitry Medvedev asked Churov to take identification of "roughness” into account in further work by the CEC.
Source: Interfax, October 27, 2009
The 2011 state budget allocated 23.77 billion rubles to hold two rounds of elections. Of them, 7.1 billion rubles was intended for the Duma elections, and more than 12 billion rubles was to cover expenses on the presidential elections.
Source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, August 30, 2011
On September 12, 2011 a protest rally was held before the building housing the Central Election Commission of Russia. Protesters opposed to election fraud. They had banners and shouted slogans like "Your elections are a farce!", "Elections without opposition is a crime", "Churov, shaved bald". The last slogan referred to Churov promising to shave his beard if there would be any cases of fraud during the previous Duma elections. After that, the protesters booed the CEC head. At the end of the protest rally, the participants burned several photos of Churov and left razors and shaving cream in front of the CEC in case if Churov would want to personally fulfill his promise. Contrary to tradition, the rally was not broken up and its organizers were not arrested.
Source: Russian service of Voice of America, USA, September 13, 2011