Russia’s Election Commission became one of Russia’s top five best paid state services, after employees of the election body received bonuses for election campaigns, commission spokesman Nikolai Konkin said on Wednesday.
“After having carried out the federal election campaign, the Central Election Commission is among the state services whose employees received higher salaries,” Konkin said, adding that the salaries grew because of the bonuses paid to the staff.
According to the report by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat), the Central Election Commission’s average salary in the first quarter of 2012 was 92,300 rubles ($3,000) while the average wage of the states services’ employee is 51,600 rubles ($1,720).
Konkin said that when there were no elections in the country, the salaries of the Election Commission were much less.
In early March the Election Commission head, Vladimir Churov, was awarded a state honor, the Order of Alexander Nevsky which is given to citizens of the Russian Federation who have served in civil service positions for at least 20 years and have achieved special personal merit in nation-building.
Churov, who was at the center of the storm raised by vote fraud allegations in the parliamentary and presidential elections, was dubbed “the wizard” after the December 4 elections, which saw allegations of mass vote fraud in favor of ruling United Russia party.
The presidential elections in March and the preceding parliamentary vote in December gave rise to unprecedented protests across the nation, which have resumed in the past three days but at a lesser scale. Putin accused the United States of backing opposition leaders.