Press Release, 8.09.2021

Photo: Ksenia Cherepanova / Photo by Ksenia Cherepanova

The Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region recognised Ksenia Cherepanova as a candidate affiliated with a foreign agent organisation.

The organisation Ksenia Cherepanova is associated with is the Golos electoral rights movement. Before the elections, this movement was recognized a “foreign agent”. Ksenia Cherepanova was the Chair of the Novgorod branch of Golos, but due to participation in the elections, she suspended her participation in the movement.

“Neither I nor Yabloko was invited to the electoral commission meeting. Thus, the lists of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko will include as many as three “foreign agents”: ambulance paramedics Valentina Beletskikh from the Parfinsky district and Tatyana Rumyantseva from Okulovka, and I, the head of the anti-corruption policy centre of the Novgorod branch of the Yabloko party,” Ksenia Cherepanova comments on the decision of the electoral commission.

It should be noted that the federal list of Yabloko also fell under the law on “foreign agents”. The party is obliged to devote 15% of the volume of each of its campaign materials to marking the presence of a candidate affiliated with a “foreign agent” on the list. According to the Ministry of Justice, such a candidate is political prisoner Andrei Pivovarov. The corresponding markings will be on the ballots as well. Yabloko does not agree with this demand and will seek the abolition of the repressive law on “foreign agents” in the Duma.