Press Release, 05.02.2018

Nikolai Rybakov, head of Grigory Yavlinsky’s election headquarters, replied to the statements of Alexei Navalny and Ksenia Sobchak about the collection of signatures in favour of their registration in the race published in their Twitter and Instragram accounts.

Ksenia Sobchak reported that her headquarters was “the only one” opened for the observers of the Golos [elections observers’] organisation and others, and that only her staff demonstrated the signatures to all the visitors. Alexei Navalny stated that, in his opinion, “Yavlinsky’s headquarters forged 60 per cent of the signatures.” “All the rest (including Sobchak) forged 99 per cent,” that is how Navalny estimated the percentage of defective signature in the lists of potential participants in the presidential election campaign.

According to Nikolai Rybakov, these statements were an insult not so much to Yabloko party members and staff of Yavlinsky’s headquarters, but the citizens who signed in support of Yavlinsky participation in the campaign.

” Yabloko’s offices were absolutely accessible to the media for over a month (from December 27, 2017, though to January 30, 2018), when Yavlinsky’s headquarters were collecting and checking the signatures,” Nikolai Rybakov wrote. “We also met representatives of observers’ associations, including Golos and Grazhdanin Nabludatel, and agreed on cooperation with them. Yabloko has done a tremendous job in 81 regions collecting 180,000 signatures. Over 3,000 signature collectors participated in this work. Fortunately, we are a party that exists not only on paper. Our headquarters are [our party’s] regional branches that have been operating all over the country for more than 20 years already,” Rybakov wrote.

Meanwhile, today the Central Electoral Commission has published a protocol of verification of 60,000 signatures in support of Yavlinsky’s nomination. Experts found only 1.07 per cent of signatures defective.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov and Grigory Yavlinsky