Non-registration of YABLOKO in
the regional elections: a hypocrisy or a weakness of the presidential
power?
Statement of the Bureau of the YABLOKO
party
February 27, 2010
Right after President Medvedev’s statement made at the
State Council meeting on the need to
facilitate political competition and democratization of
the political system YABLOKO was cynically and unlawfully
withdrawn from elections to the legislative assemblies of
the Kaluga and Sverdlovsk regions, the regions where YABLOKO
enjoyed considerable support from the electorate.
The signatures collected in support of YABLOKO’s election
lists were announced “invalid” on
factitious unlawful grounds. The Chair of the electoral
commission of the Sverdlovsk region publicly announced that
signatures in support of YABLOKO would be recognised invalid
already when YABLOKO had only been collecting these signatures.
The electoral commission of the Kaluga region made all it
could so that not to allow the leaders of the regional YABLOKO
branch to participate in the audit of the signatures.
YABLOKO’s lodging complaints of such refusals in courts
did not lead anywhere – the courts, as well as electoral
commissions, refused to examine the evidence submitted by
YABLOKO’s activists.
These developments demonstrate too well that all the talk
of “evolution of Russia’s political system towards democratization
and political competition” initiated by the President represents
a sheer hypocrisy. The other explanation can be reduced
to one fact only: we are witnessing political weakness of
the President who is unable to ensure implementation of
what he has been publicly calling to.
We are demanding from the President of Russia to adopt
urgent measures for restoration of the infringed electoral
rights of YABLOKO’s candidates at elections to the legislative
assemblies of the Kaluga and the Sverdlovsk region.
We are also demanding from the President of Russia to immediately
submit to the State Duma legislative initiatives on abolishing
collection of signatures for all political parties at their
registration at elections of all levels and their equal
representation in the electoral commissions of all levels.
