Press Release, 9.09.2022

Photo: A team of Yabloko candidates in the Basmanny district in Moscow / Photo from social media

The municipal election campaign in Moscow, unprecedented as of the number of deregistered Yabloko candidates, has reached the finish line. One day remains before the voting in September 9-11, and some candidates still continue to defend in courts their right to be elected. In Moscow, documents for registration with the territorial electoral commissions were submitted by 179 candidates. To date, 141 Yabloko candidates remain in the status of registered. But their number may still change. The Press Service of the Yabloko party collected information about egregious cases of unfair removal from elections, fines and arrests, falsification of evidence of the “guilt” of candidates for municipal deputies campaigning under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom!”.

In Moscow, ten Yabloko candidates were prosecuted under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Offences Code (“demonstration of extremist symbols”), and, thus, were deprived of their right to be elected within the next 12 months. Nodari Khananashvili (municipal deputy in the Akademichesky district in Moscow), Tatyana Kasimova (head of the Khamovniki Municipal Council), Anna Shatunovskaya-Byurno (in the Yakimanka district), Viktor Barantsev (in Zamoskvorechye), Denis Oleshkevich (in Savelovsky), Sergey Vdovin (in Timiryazevsky) received fines from 1,000 to 2,000 roubles. Nikolai Kavkazsky (in Basmanny), Nikita Arkin (in Basmanny), Andrei Morev (head of the Yakimanka Municipal Council) and Nikolai Kasyan (in Khamovniki) served administrative arrests of from five to fifteen days. Some candidates were summoned to the territorial electoral commissions, where the police were waiting for them to draw up protocols of “offences” against them. The candidates were accused of publishing on social media of a red exclamation mark which the authorities associate with the headquarters of Alexei Navalny, regardless of the content of the post. Thus, Nikolai Kavkazsky was given ten days of arrest for a post with an exclamation mark in which he criticized Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting project. In the cases when the police could not find evidence of the “guilt”, the evidence was falsified. Nikita Arkin was charged with producing campaign leaflets with “prohibited symbols”, however, he had nothing to do with those leaflets. Andrei Morev presented evidence that a sticker with an “extremist” exclamation mark, which led to charges against him and a verdict ‘guilty’, had been pasted on his car by unidentified persons at night a few hours before his arrest. The court decided not to take this information into account.

Nodari Khananshvili did not apply for registration as a candidate after the court decision. Viktor Barantsev, Sergei Vdovin, Denis Oleshkevich, Nikolai Kavkazsky and Andrei Morev were removed from the elections. However, Tatyana Kasimova, Nikita Arkin, Nikolay Kasyan, Anna Shatunovskaya-Byurno have not lost their registered candidate status as of to-day and continue their campaign.

Maria Volokh, Yabloko’s candidate in the Tverskoy district in Moscow, was deregistered by a unanimous decision of the Territorial Electoral Commission due to her alleged dual citizenship. Volokh had a Dutch residence permit that expired in 2019, but neither the electoral commission nor the courts of two instances wanted to go into details. In addition, Volokh was fined under Article 20.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code.

Savva Karpov, another candidate nominated by Yabloko in the Basmanny district of Moscow, accidentally found out that the TEC had removed him from the election. He was not duly informed of this, did not know the reason for the electoral commission’s decision and filed a complaint with the district court. Like other candidates in Basmanny, he fears accusations of “demonstrating extremist symbols”: there is reason to believe that the electoral commission, together with the police, will try to summon Karpov to the commission promises where a protocol of an administrative offense will be drawn up against him, depriving him of his right to be elected within the next 12 months.

Photo: Yablko election campaign newspaper in Yakimanka / Photo from social media

In the Moscow district of Kuntsevo, acting deputy Denis Shenderovich was denied registration for alleged involvement in the activities of an extremist organisation. Earlier, he was accused of organising a street action together with the headquarters of Alexei Navalny. The accusation was then based on doubtful evidence. The Territorial Electoral Commission rejected his appeal.

The court of Zamoskvorechye District of Moscow found Olga Prudlik, a municipal deputy in the Konkovo district in Moscow, involved in the activities of Navalny’s headquarters because of her alleged participation in rallies last year. The candidate is appealing against the court’s decision and remains in the registered status for the time being.

Two candidates and current Moscow municipal deputies – Dmitry Gorchakov (Alekseyevsky) and Ekaterina Semyanovskaya (Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo) – were found guilty of copyright infringement. Gorchakov posted a post on social media with a quote from a song and a link to a feature film. The court recognised his post with a call to come to the polls as campaigning, in which a quote and a film were used in violation of the law. Semyanovskaya was accused of copy right infringement by posting a publicly available photo on her leaflet. Both candidates appealed the decision of the courts, Gorchakov was removed from the elections, however Semyanovskaya still remains registered.

Thirteen candidates from Yabloko for the Moscow municipal elections were denied registration, allegedly due to problems with documents or because of inaccurate signatures. The current municipal deputy of Toroparevo-Nikulino Valeria Geshberg, candidates Anton Voitenkov, Stanislav Yelagin (both from the Krylatskoye district in Moscow), Natalya Komissarova, Dmitry Lurie (both from the Preobrazhensky district), Natalya Kuksina (Timiryazevsky), and Ivan Khalezov (Bogorodskoye), when submitting to the electoral commissions packages of documents for registration in the race, received an admission act from their territorial electoral commissions stating that all the documents were in order. However, a few days later, some of Yabloko candidates received notifications from the Territorial Electoral Commission that the documents contained an error (in most cases, it was about an unspecified date of issue of the diploma of education). The candidates brought the missing information to the Territorial Electoral Commission, however the Commission did not take into account the new data. Several candidates went to court over the illegal actions of the  Commission, but lost in two instances.

Photo: a leaflet of Yabloko candidates in Zamoskvorechye, Moscow / Photo from social media

Alexei Krapukhin (in the Moscow district of Krylatskoe) filed an application with the Territorial Electoral Commission, the day before the start of the collection of signatures, to suspend his powers as a voting member of the Commission, as required by law. However, the Commission refused to consider his statement and ruled out that the candidate did not have the right to collect signatures.

Candidates from the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow – Maxim Bolotin, Timofei Bolotin and Olga Bolotin, Polina Davydova from Lefortovo, Alexei Larionov from Kryukovo, Maria Voitekhovskaya from Nagatino-Sadovniky and Irina Sobyanina from Nagatino were also denied registration due to signatures. Voitekhovskaya and Sobyanina submitted written statements to the higher electoral commission from the persons whose signatures in favour of Yabloko candidates were recognised by handwriting experts as unreliable. The citizens confirmed that they personally signed for the nomination of Yabloko candidates. However, even such evidence did not influence the decisions of the electoral commissions.

Yabloko registered candidates, including those who still defend in court their right to participate in the elections, continue their “For Peace and Freedom!” campaign: distribute leaflets and booklets, visit cards and stickers, place placards, visit voters in their homes, hold meetings with voters and publish information on social media.

In elections, residents of Moscow and other regions have a chance to speak up, in a legal and safe way, about what is happening in the country and the world by voting for the candidates from the Yabloko party. Elections of municipal deputies in Moscow will be held from 9 to 11 September.