Press release, 05.01.2018

As at 5 January, the regional campaign headquarters  collected 35,700 signatures in support of Grigory Yavlinsky’s nomination for President. This makes over one third of signatures required by the Central Electoral Commission. Yabloko began collecting signatures on 26 December.

Yabloko’s election headquarters in Moscow is checking the validity of signature sheets that arrive from different regions of Russia. “We want to bring perfect signature sheets to the Central Electoral Commission, therefore we carefully check everything and put aside those sheets the validity of which might be doubted,” Yabloko Deputy Chair Nikolai Rybakov said.

According to Rybakov, Yabloko plans to collect at least 150,000 signatures to select the required 105,000 from them. “We are successfully collecting signatures despite New Year holidays. We are going ahead of our own schedule,” the politician explained.

By 31 January, Yavlinsky must transfer to the Central Electoral Commission at least 105,000 voters’ signatures in favour of his nomination, whereas only 2,500 signatures per region is allowed. Activists of Yabloko are collecting signatures in 79 regions of Russia.

A famous film director Alexander Sokurov and a renowned Russian artist and Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg Oleg Basilashvili have already put their signatures in support of Grigory Yavlinsky’s nomination for the post of the President of the Russian Federation.

Yabloko nominated its presidential candidate in 1996, 2000 and 2012. In 1996 Grigory Yavlinsky represented a democratic alternative to Boris Yeltsin’s policy. In 2000 he was the only democrat who ran against Vladimir Putin and gained 18.6 per cent in Moscow with the voters turnout of 67.1 per cent. Yavlinsky was not registered as a presidential candidate in 2012 on political grounds. In 2004 Yabloko did not nominate its candidate but supported the candidacy of human rights advocate Vladimir Bukovsky. However, he was not registered as a candidate.