Career
Between March 21, 1995 and March 24, 1999, he was the Secretary of the Central Election Commission of Russia. He was the Chairman of the Central Election Commission between March 24, 1999 and March 26, 2007. Veshnyakov lost his post heading the elections commission after he balked at putting into effect an election law revision that removed a minimum 20% turnout requirement, without which an election was invalid, and introduced new reasons for refusing registration to would-be candidates, saying it could be a pretext for refusing registration to candidates who were “undesirable”.
President Vladimir Putin simply had simply not put forward Veshnyakov’s name for renewed membership of the election commission.
But the system failed to survive the test of time and collapsed." ‘And even if there were no such remarks, his eight years in the post have earned Veshnyakov considerable weight in the country and the world, making him a media person of note. Foreign the political establishment in Russia, all this is reason enough to doubt the man"s political loyalty and suspect him of being a maverick.’.
