Statement by the Bureau of the regional branch of Yabloko, 5.09.2024

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The current election campaign in Russia’s regions of Russia is taking place in the context of continuous toughening of restrictions on citizens’ rights, political censorship in the media, blocking of information on the Internet, persecution of those who disagree with the actions of the authorities using laws on punishment for “discrediting”, “fakes” and “extremism”, laws on “foreign agents” and “undesirable organisations” adopted in recent years.

At the same time, St. Petersburg saw the toughest possible “municipal filter” [collection of voters’ or municipal deputies’ signatures in favour of a candidate be registered in the campaign] that was in effect for participation in the elections of the governor of St. Petersburg, the inclusion of strong candidates in the register of “foreign agents” deprived them of the opportunity to run, all candidates nominated by the Yabloko party, running under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For the Ceasefire agreement!”, as well as many other municipal self-nominated candidates who were inconvenient for the city administration, were denied registration under far-fetched pretexts. All this made it impossible to have an open and broad public discussion during the election campaign about the choice of the future, and about how to solve the city’s problems that the current city authorities do not cope with.

The September elections in St. Petersburg have been turned into an event where there is no place for competition between programmes and ideas, and the result of the three-day vote, which makes it difficult to control the safety of the ballots, is in most cases actually predetermined. Let everyone decide for themselves whether to participate in this.

The St. Petersburg branch of the Yabloko party does not support a single candidate in the September elections (Governor of St. Petersburg, deputies of municipal councils and deputy of the Legislative Assembly for constituency No. 18) nominated by the parties currently represented in the State Duma.

All these parties supported and voted for all the laws and decisions that brought our country to the current situation. We do not trust the candidates they nominated.

The future of St. Petersburg, like that of the entire country, is determined not by the percentage of votes for registered candidates indicated in the final protocols, but by how soon the fighting will cease and peace negotiations will begin.

The main thing today is to stop the bloodshed. Our future depends on this. Only a ceasefire and the beginning of negotiations on a future peace can give hope.

But for changes for the better to begin sooner, there must be more supporters of peace.

Yabloko invites supporters of peace to unite in the name of the future, while understanding the complexity and duration of the coming period.

Come to Yabloko – the only Russian political party that truly advocates peace and freedom.