Press Release, 11.09.2022

The Yabloko Press Service has got screenshots (https://www.yabloko.ru/regnews/Moscow/2022/09/11) from a chat of pro-government observers, where employees of the Yakimanka district executive authority demand to “wag the nerves”, “resist to”, “make maximum difficulties” for Yabloko observers. The observers hired by the authorities must write personal messages about all the actions of the Yabloko activists to Tatyana Tregubova, an employee of the Yakimanka district executive authority (her phone number is determined through a mobile service). Another participant in the chat who gives recommendations on counteraction to observers from Yabloko is Svetlana Osiptsova, a former deputy of the Yakimanka district and a candidate from the ruling United Russia.

In addition, the Yabloko Press Service has got audio messages in the Telegram of a girl who says that she will participate in voting more than once: she plans to approach certain members of electoral commissions at the polling stations, and she has a piece of paper with someone else’s passport data pasted in her passport. “On the ballot, you need to vote only for United Russia… Yabloko must be extinguished as much as possible,” the girl reports. She also notes that she is not alone in this “carousel” (when one and same person votes several times at different polling stations), the participants are accompanied by a woman named Sveta – presumably, the candidate from the United Russia party, Svetlana Osiptsova.

Photo: Passport photo of the carousel participant with another voter data

While observers from Yabloko are preparing for provocations, the candidates have already had to face them. Thus, the police detained Alexei Kasyan, a candidate for the Lomonosovsky district, today at about 1:00 a.m. He was taken to the police station, where he was held for more than three hours. A protocol was drawn up against him under Article 5.10 of the Code of Administrative Offenses: Kasyan had allegedly put up his election posters at night. The fact of violation of the law was not recorded, since the candidate did not put up his posters.

Earlier, there were attempts to provoke candidates from Yabloko to make statements falling under censorship. Candidates received phone calls allegedly from journalists from Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Novaya Gazeta, Polit.ru, and other media asking them to comment on their stance on the so-called “special operation” and “smart voting”. The provocation failed.

Meanwhile, members of electoral commissions and police officers in a number of Moscow polling stations received “lists of the disenfranchised” – lists of candidates from Yabloko and other political parties who had been deprived of their passive suffrage. It was unclear why the lists had been compiled.

Yabloko registered candidates get excessive attention at polling stations. Thus, Yabloko candidate Maria Chuprina from Taganskiy distict in Moscow said that a police officer at station No. 109 did her a half-hour search, forcing her to turn out all her pockets.

There were also spoilers at this election. Thus, Roman Baryshev, a candidate from Yabloko in Khoroshevo-Mnevniki in Moscow, got a “doppelgänger” Andrei Baryshev. So that the “doppelgänger”, teacher of computer science of Moscow school No. 1517 looked like our candidate, he was “made” look alike with the help of an image editor.

Photo: Yabloko candidate Roman Baryshev and his spoiler in the information poster

The telephone hotline of the Yabloko party continues to receive messages from candidates, observers and voters about election violations.

A briefing will be held at the central office of the party today at 17:00. Leaders of the Yabloko electoral headquarters will tell about the course of the elections.