The party appeals refusals to register another 191 candidates

Press Release, 1.08.2019

Picture: registration of candidates as of St.Petserburg distrcits, the share of registered candidates is marked in green, the share of unregistered candidates is marked in red.

370 candidates for St. Petersburg municipal deputies nominated by Yabloko managed to get registration in the elections. The Yabloko election headquarters continues to appeal in the higher electoral commissions and courts the refusals of registration to another 191 party candidates.

Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, recalled that the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko had always been widely represented in local governments. Many party members were deputies and heads of municipalities. In 2014, as in 2019, the party nominated hundreds of candidates in the elections.

“As we can see, the problem is not in the candidates, but in the system of power. We are not allowed to participate in the elections through electoral commissions that are absolutely controlled [by the authorities] and do not register Yabloko under any pretext, sometimes using just gangster methods. What is happening now is a copy of what happened five years ago. Then no one was punished for the crimes, and the present situation is the result of this impunity,” Nikolai Rybakov emphasised.

According to Maxim Katz, head of the party’s election headquarters in the municipal elections in St. Petersburg, it is highly likely that the party will succeed in reinstating the most of its candidates dismissed by the electoral commissions of municipal districts under illegal and absurd pretexts.

Maxim Katz also noted that the most alarming situation with the registration of candidates from Yabloko was in the Petrogradsky and Moskovsky districts.

“We won a trial in Petrogradsky district and reinstated eight candidates in one of the main constituencies. The Central Electoral Commission plans to reinstate two more our candidates. They have not been registered yet, but it is a very good sign. We continue working,” the head of the party’s election headquarters in the municipal elections in St. Petersburg said.

It should be noted that St. Petersburg municipal elections attracted the attention of the whole country not only because of the use of an administrative resource there, but also because of criminal arbitrariness on the part of regional authorities and electoral commissions seeking to prevent opposition candidates from running in the elections. Candidates for municipal deputies of St. Petersburg from the Yabloko party faced a massive denial of registration on far-fetched grounds, and even substitution of documents in the electoral commissions of municipalities.

Yabloko called on the Central Electoral Commission to stop preventing the registration of opposition candidates for municipal deputies of St. Petersburg by district electoral commission. After Yabloko’s appeals, a group of ten officers of the Central Electoral Commission arrived to St. Petersburg with a check.

In addition, Yabloko Chairperson Emilia Slabunova, Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, demanded that all those involved in preventing municipal candidates from being registered in the elections in St. Petersburg be prosecuted. Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko Deputy Chairman, appealed to Ella Pamfilova, head of the Central Electoral Commission, asking her to personally visit St. Petersburg. Emilia Slabunova also called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to restore lawfulness in the St. Petersburg municipal elections. St.Petersburg Yabloko considers the events at the municipal elections in St. Petersburg a crime against rights of the citizens to elect and be elected.

Elections in St. Petersburg will be held on a single voting day on 8 September.