Press Release, 28.06.2019

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova sent a complaint to the Central Electoral Commission about fraud in collecting signatures in support of acting Governor of St.Petersburg Alexander Beglov, who intents to run as candidate for Governor of St. Petersburg in the forthcoming election. Slabunova also asked the Investigative Committee to conduct an inspection of violations.

“Certification of forged subscription lists in support of Alexander Beglov may lead to his illegal registration as a candidate for Governor of St. Petersburg,” Slabunova noted.

The videos demonstrating allegedly staff of the district administration or budget organisations filling in  subscription lists in support of Beglov’s nomination in the assembly hall of the administration of the Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg, emerged in the Internet a few days ago.

The authors of the videos witnessed this certification of forged subscription lists. They asked questions to employees whether they were collectors indicated in the subscription lists and received negative answers. The authors of the videos also met with voters whose passport details were indicated in the subscription lists found in the administration, and the voters confirmed that they did not give their consent in support of Beglov’s nomination.

It should be noted that Boris Vishnevsky, Yabloko’s MP in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, was nominated by the party to run in the election of the Governor of St. Petersburg. Gubernatorial elections in St. Petersburg will be held on a single voting day on 8 September. In addition to the Governor, St. Petersburg residents will have to elect deputies in 109 municipalities. Earlier, Yabloko had demanded that the Central Electoral Commission should take all the efforts so that not to allow disrupting the nomination of opposition candidates for municipal deputies of St. Petersburg.