Press Release, 29.07.2024

Photo: Yabloko’s placard “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire agreement!”

The Kirovsky District Court of St.Petersburg considered the complaint of Yabloko candidates for the Narva District Municipal Council against the decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No 41 (candidates Ivan Zlobin, Eduard Nikolayev, Marina Peslyak, Pavel Samsonov, Elizaveta Balakina, Alexei Bogdanov, Anna Karulicheva, and Alexei Rzyankin), and the Petrogradsky District Court of St.Petersburg considered the complaint of candidates for the Posadsky District Municipal Council against the decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No 18 (candidates Anna Zalevina and Andrei Stepanenko). Judging by the decisions, that have already been received in full, the courts fully reproduced the positions of the Territorial Electoral Commissions and ignored all of Yabloko’s arguments and objections.

It should be noted that the positions of both the aforementioned and other territorial electoral commissions that refused to register absolutely all Yabloko candidates coincide down to the spelling errors (which proves that they were prepared in one place and it is a planned campaign to completely prevent Yabloko from participating in the elections), which has nothing to do with the law.

The territorial electoral commissions (and the courts!) claim  that St. Petersburg Yabloko allegedly had no right to nominate candidates at its meeting (on 24 June, 2024) of the previously convened party conference, but should have convened a new conference for this purpose.

This position of electoral commissions is not based on the law or the Yabloko Party By-Laws. The electoral commissions deliberately confuse the convening of a conference with the holding of its next meeting. A conference is not an event, but the highest governing body.

It is convened (which implies preliminary meetings in the district branches of the party and the election of delegates to the conference) and begins work, after which the conference has the right to hold any number of meetings, considering any issues, including the nomination of candidates.

Such is the law, this is the By-Laws of the Yabloko Party, and such are the practices of all Russian political parties. The conference of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko, which nominated candidates for municipal deputies at its meeting on 24 June, 2024, was initially convened in October 2022, but did not close, but continued its work, which it had every right to do. At one of its previous meetings – on 24 May, 2023 – it elected delegates to the Yabloko Party Congress, which was held in December 2023, at which new governing bodies of the party were elected. Representatives of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation were at this congress. The congress and the new leadership of the party were recognised by the Ministry of Justice, there were no claims (including regarding the legitimacy of the delegates of the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko as well as the conference of the St. Petersburg Yabloko which elected these delegates).

But the St. Petersburg territorial electoral commissions (or rather, those who wrote identical draft decisions for them denying registration to Yabloko candidates) have a different, fraudulent logic.

They claim that in order to nominate candidates, the St.Petersburg branch of Yabloko had to convene a new conference in 2024, again holding meetings in district branches to select delegates from them to the conference, and they refer to the norm of the party By-Laws, which does not contain such a requirement.

The task of electoral commissions, according to federal law, is to ensure and protect the electoral rights of citizens.

In this case, the Territorial Electoral Commissions are doing everything to trample on electoral rights when it comes to Yabloko, its candidates and voters.

It is obvious that the electoral commissions, and now the courts, are fulfilling a political order to remove Yabloko candidates from the elections in St. Petersburg because they are all running under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom”.

The St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko will seek registration of its candidates and protection of the rights of Yabloko voters in all judicial instances.

The unlawful refusal to register 82 candidates from Yabloko for the municipal elections in St.Petersburg is being contested by the candidates from St. Petersburg Yabloko; together with lawyers from the regional branch, they have filed 18 class action lawsuits in ten districts of the city.