Emila Slabonova’s Facebook page, 25.09.2018

Gubernatorial runoff elections took place in Khabarovsk Krai and the Vladimir Region on Sunday. The winners are candidates from LDPR Sergei Furgal and Vladimir Sipyagin who are considered to be “approved” candidates who did not really have an election campaign and did not seriously compete with United Russia’s candidates. Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova summed up the election results on her Facebook page:

– What happened in the Vladimir Region and Khabarovsk Krai? Economic stagnation, misuse of public funds, corruption, infrastructural and communal crisis, environmental problems, the fact that one citizen in five lives below the poverty line – it cannot be like this all the time. As a result, the authorities lost to their own “clones” in the runoff election.

Why did it happen? When the system becomes unstable, any accident may play a crucial part. Sometimes there is an avalanche if your clap your hands in the mountains. The decision to raise the retirement age backfired and changed the electoral behaviour of voters in the runoff elections. What else can backfire?! There is reason why the Security Council discussed the election results.

What is next? There will be no serious changes” goals, values, policies and methods will remain unchanged because loyal soldiers of the system who were approved and were allowed to pass the [municipal filter] came to power.

What shall we do? Demand changes! A political reform must be the first on the list. One must cure a damaged political system with free political competition (Ella Pamfilove [head of the Central Election Commission] herself admitted this aloud). In this case there will be alternation of power. As a result we will have new politicians with long-term vision, modern approaches, basic human values and responsibility to the voters.