Yabloko’s initiative to reduce the municipal filter for candidates failed

Press Release, 10.04.2024

Photo by the Press Service of the Legislative Assembly of St.Petersburg

Only 17 deputies in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, supported the initiative of the Yabloko faction to reduce the municipal filter for gubernatorial candidates. Now the city has the highest “threshold” for candidates: to be registered in the race a candidate must provide 10%, i.e. about 150 signatures of St.Petersburg municipal deputies in his/her favour. The law allows to reduce this threashold to 5%, which is what the Yabloko faction proposed to use.

The municipal filter is an artificial obstacle to the registration of a candidate in the gubernatorial elections. To be able to nominate one’s candidacy, one must obtain the consent of 10% municipal deputies of the city, i.e., about 150 people. It should be taken into account that the majority in municipal councils is taken by members and supporters of United Russia or representatives of the LDPR who are virtually indistinguishable from the former, controlled employees of local administrations, and so on.

The few supporters of the democratic opposition, who despite stuffing of fraudulent ballots in favour of the pro-government parties, non-admissions to elections and real physical violence managed to get elected in 2019, are systematically deprived of their mandates and labeled “enemies of Russia”.

Yabloko advocates the complete abolition of the municipal filter and intends to submit this initiative to the federal parliament.

“We have never heard any substantive arguments either at the commissions or the meeting of the Legislative Assembly: apparently the opponents are embarrassed to voice out loud the reasons for their position. The conclusion from Governor Alexander Beglov runs that the current mechanism “has proven its efficiency”. Certainly, the governor considers the mechanism limiting competition to be “efficient”,” Boris Vishnevsky, deputy leader of the Yabloko faction, explained to his colleagues at a meeting of the St.Petersburg parliament on 10 April (he has the status of a foreign agent which he will challenge in court).

“Probably, it would be even more “efficient”, from his point of view, to be elected without any competitors at all. The reasons why our opponents refuse to reduce the “municipal filter” are very simple – fear and uncertainty: fear of open, public competition and uncertainty of victory in fair elections,” Vishnevsky added.

The Yabloko party stands for fair competition in elections at all levels. Officials and the deputies who serve these officials are trying to maintain their posts by limiting this competition.

BORIS VISHNEVSKY

is Deputy Chairman of the Yabloko Party, member of the Yabloko Federal Political Committee and Bureau, and an MP of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg