Press Release, 14.03.2017

On 14 March, the Appeals Board of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dismissed YABLOKO’s appeal against the decision of the Supreme Court, which refused to cancel the results of the elections to the State Duma past November. This decision will be appealed in the Presidium of the Supreme Court.

YABLOKO asked in its complaint to cancel the decision of the Supreme Court and satisfy the demands of the party’s claim. According to YABLOKO, the court unreasonably refused to demand the evidence on the case, including the registers for the issuance of copies of protocols at a number of polling stations in Dagestan, the prosecutor’s order for violations in St. Petersburg, and video recordings from polling stations in St. Petersburg, Tatarstan, Bashkiria and other evidence.

In addition, the Supreme Court hurried to complete the examination of the claim in a day, which may indicate its bias approach and disinterest in a thorough examination of the case.

“The demonstrated haste did not correspond to our ideas about the Supreme Court as an independent institution, which thoroughly examines the case, especially on such a level,” Alexei Suzyumov, YABLOKO lawyer, commented on the case.

Dmitry Voronin, representative of the Central Electoral Commission, asked the court to dismiss YABLOKO’s claim and leave the previous decision on YABLOKO’s lawsuit unchanged, since “there had been no violations of the law that would not have allowed to determine the voters’ will and calculate the results of the election” during the past parliamentary elections.

Nikolai Rybakov, deputy Chair of YABLOKO, noted that “the court neither gave us the opportunity to demand evidence, nor assessed the mass-scale violations that took place during the campaign and vote counting. Consequently, citizens are once again convinced that the authorities do not aim to conduct fair elections, and in return they do not come to vote in elections. If there is no honest examination into the violations in the State Duma elections, citizens will not come to the presidential elections and there will even less trust to the government in the country”.

The YABLOKO party did not recognize the results of the recent elections to the State Duma. Violations and shortcomings of the organisation of the elections on behalf of electoral commissions did not allow to establish the real will of the voters, as stated in the lawsuit YABLOKO filed to the Supreme Court. YABLOKO continues collecting evidence of fraud in the past elections.