At regional elections in Russia (March 13,
2011) taking place in Russia’s regions local election officials
banned over 45 percent (3 rejected party lists and 43 candidates
out of total of YABLOKO’s 8 lists and 66 candidates - the
highest figure from all the parties) of the candidates nominated
by the YABLOKO party, compared with 0.8 percent for the ruling
United Russia.
Although, according to public opinion poll conducted by Novaya
Gazeta, YABLOKO should have led the elections with 25.2 percent
of votes against 1.5 percent in favour of the ruling United
Russia. Such figures were confirmed by the results of local
elections in the Vladimir region and the Republic of Karelia
where YABLOKO’s candidates won the campaign gaining from 29
to 48 percent.
However, initially YABLOKO applied for registration in election
campaigns in 15 regions but was ousted from most of the campaign
under a pretext of "fraudulent signatures" in favour
of the party for registration in the campaigns. (According
to the Russian law, YABLOKO as a non-parliamentary party,
have to collect signatures from its electorate in support
of its candidates to get registered in election campaigns).
In reality this procedure is used as a pretext for annulling
the signatures in favour of the party announcing them fraudulent
despite the evidence given by the party supporters in court
that their signatures were authentic.
“The YABLOKO party has been constantly facing arbitrary rule
and politically biased violation of its rights at elections
of all levels for many years already. The most wide spread
techniques are those targeted at ousting the party from elections
already at the stage of registration at election campaigns…
YABLOKO insists that all the political parties should have
equal rights to participate in the elections without any preliminary
requirements,” said YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin.
In the regions where YABLOKO managed to get through these
barriers and get registered in the campaign the party had
to again face multiple provocations from the ruling United
Russia party as well as favoritism of the media in favour
of the latter. The election day again revealed much fraud,
such as compulsion of public servants to vote for the ruling
party, bribing of voters and mass-scale ballot-stuffing of
faked votes in favour of the ruling party (with a broad use
of absentees’ votes). Journalists and observers were ousted
from electoral districts in violation of the law. Especially
large number of violations was registered by YABLOKO in the
Saratov region.
YABLOKO will dispute the results of fraudulent elections
in courts.
