Press Release, 16.05.2018

As of May 16, Yabloko’s organizational committee for conducting primaries that should determine the candidate for post of the Mayor of Moscow from the Yabloko party, received applications from 37 potential candidates; 22 of them have already begun collecting signatures in favour of their participation in the preliminary voting. This was announced at the briefing for journalists conducted by Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of the organizational committee.

Among those who submitted applications are Sergei Mitrokhin, leader of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, Elena Rusakova, head of the Gagarinsky district of Moscow,  Igor Nikolayev, Professor of the Higher School of Economics and economist, Igor Glek, chess grandmaster and Yabloko municipal deputy of the Troparyovo-Nikulino district of Moscow, Viktor Dulin, coordinator of the volunteer movement Lisa Alert and municipal deputy from the Arbat district of Moscow, and others.

All the applicants must collect signatures in their support of either ten members of the governing bodies of the party, or 20 municipal deputies of Moscow from Yabloko, or 30 signatures of party members; whereas 30 signatures of representatives of any of these categories in any proportion will suffice for registration.

Rybakov did not rule out that the list of applicants may grow: registration of participants would be opened on a special website until 20 May.

Also registration for voters is open on the same web-site – at the moment there are 3,517 registered voters and another 260 people applied for registration.

In total, 22 categories of voters will participate in the voting, such as deputies and candidates for deputies in municipal elections in 2017, citizens who donated funds to the party in the past three years, volunteers of the presidential campaign of 2018, leaders of public opinion in Moscow and well-known journalists.

Nikolai Rybakov stressed that the party tried to achieve the widest possible and the most representative vote. At the same time, it is important that potential Yabloko candidates for the post of Mayor do not have starting advantages.

Launch of the candidates’ programmes and debates between them are scheduled for 22-26 May. After that voters will determine two the most preferred candidates. On 31 May, another round of debates will take place and on 1-3 June the final vote will be held, which will determine the candidate from Yabloko to run for the Mayor of Moscow. Then the candidate will be approved by the Federal Bureau of the party, after which an official nomination will be held at the conference of the Moscow branch of Yabloko.