Press Release, 29.08.2017

The Moscow Electoral Commission has dismissed Sergei Mityusov, head of the Territorial Electoral Commission of Koptevo, Moscow, who appealed to the court, demanding to withdraw four candidates from the YABLOKO party from the Moscow municipal elections. In addition, the Moscow Electoral Commission has banned the territorial commission to execute the court decisions that have not entered into force, and also requests the prosecutor’s office to appeal the court’s decision on the withdrawal of YABLOKO candidates.

“In violation of paragraph 13 of Article 28 of the Federal Law “On the Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right of Citizens of the Russian Federation to Participate in the Referendum,” the Chairman of the Territorial Electoral Commission of the Koptevo District. . Unilaterally, without taking the appropriate decision of the electoral commission appealed to the court with administrative lawsuits to cancel registration of registered candidates,” runs the press release of the Moscow Electoral commission. “Sergei Mityushov was released from his duties as Chairman of the territorial election commission of the Koptevo district.”

On 28 August, the Koptevsky District Court of Moscow annulled the registration of candidates from the YABLOKO party Andrei Simonov, Anton Chernykh, Tatyana Agafonova-Lenskaya and Andrey Natalchuk in the municipal elections.

Given the circumstances of the case, YABLOKO is convinced that this decision has political, rather than legal reasons.

The complaint against YABLOKO to the local electoral commission was filed by a company engaged in advertising in the blocks of flats. The company accused YABLOKO candidates of placing their propaganda products on the company’s announcement boards in the halls of blocks of flats. It stated damages in the amount of 6,240 rubles, but did not provide any justification for this damage. Also, the court did not provide any evidence that the placement of materials was made by the YABLOKO candidates.

Based on this complaint, the territorial electoral commission filed four lawsuits in court against YABLOKO stating that YABLOKO had abused freedom of the media.

Commenting on the court’s decision, Andrei Simonov suggested that the placards could have been placed on the boards by the company or YABLOKO’s competitors.

Simonov also adds, that all the terms for appealing today’s decision to cancel registration have expired – it is impossible to do this technically. Therefore, the court did not have the right to take up the law suit.

“The real reason for our withdrawal from the elections is our success in the election campaign,” Andrei Simonov says. “We have already held dozens of meetings with the residents of the district, and planned to conduct 46 more meetings in the remaining two weeks before the elections. We have been conducting the most active campaign in Koptevo. It is clear that the competitors were frightened. ”

It should be also noted that in early August the Savelovsky District Court in Moscow also withdrew four YABLOKO candidates from the municipal elections in another Moscow district – Sokol. Due to the appeal in the Moscow City Court, the registration of two YABLOKO candidates was reinstated.

In total about 700 candidates from YABLOKO participate in the Moscow municipal campaign of 2017.