Yabloko candidate for the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Olga Yurkevich is denied registration. Yabloko will appeal in court the decision of the electoral commission
Press Release, 30.07.2024
Photo: Olga Yurkevich / Photo by the regional branch of Yabloko
According to the draft decision of Territorial Electoral Commission No. 6 of St.Petersburg, the reason for refusing to register Olga Yurkevich, a pediatric anesthesiologist and Yabloko candidate in electoral district No. 18, was that Yabloko allegedly failed to notify the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission of its intentions to hold an event at which Yurkevich was nominated. According to Yabloko lawyers, this draft decision does not comply with either the federal or the city legislation. According to the law on political parties, only Territorial Electoral Commission No. 6 had to be notified of the meeting of the Bureau of the St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party, at which the decision to nominate Yurkevich was made, and this was done. The party will seek the registration of Olga Yurkevich in court.
“The position of the Territorial Electoral Commission once again shows that the registration of opposition candidates for the September elections in St. Petersburg is not carried out on the basis of law, but by means of an arbitrary interpretation of the electoral legislation with the aim of not allowing Yabloko candidates to run in the elections under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom,” Alexander Shishlov, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Yabloko, said.
Olga Yurkevich was born in Leningrad in 1962. She graduated from the Leningrad Pediatric Medical Institute. Since 1990, she has worked as an anesthesiologist-resuscitator in various medical institutions, including the Leningrad City Hospital No. 2, the St. Petersburg Children’s Infectious Diseases Hospital, the Alexandrovskaya Hospital, and the Almazov National Medical Research Centre. Olga Yurkevich is married and has two adult children.
Earlier, before the September elections, all Yabloko candidates who were nominated for municipal councils were not allowed to run. The unlawful refusal of electoral commissions to register Yabloko candidates for the municipal elections is being contested by 82 Yabloko candidates; together with lawyers from the regional branch, they filed 18 class action lawsuits in ten districts of St.Petersburg.
Posted: July 31st, 2024 under Elections, Freedom of Speech, Governance, Human Rights, Judiciary, Regional and Local Elections, Regional and Local Elections 2024, Yabloko's Regional Branches.