Press Release, 25.07.2026

Photo: Yabloko list leaders Inna Boluchevskaya, Olga Tuzhikova and Anna Pavlova

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia has accepted for consideration an administrative claim filed by the regional branch of the Rodina (Motherland) political party seeking to overturn the 17 July resolution of the Electoral Commission of the Republic of Karelia registering Yabloko’s list of candidates for the elections to the eighth convocation of the Karelia’s Legislative Assembly.

In its claim, Rodina cites the same circumstances that Territorial Electoral Commission No. 1 of Petrozavodsk had cited earlier today as grounds for refusing to register Yabloko’s list of candidates for the Petrozavodsk City Council elections.

The court hearing has been scheduled for 10:00 on 29 July. The court has asked the parties to the proceedings to submit the requested evidence, as well as responses and objections on the merits of the administrative claim, by 12:00 on 28 July.

It should be noted that earlier today, 25 July, Territorial Electoral Commission No. 1 of Petrozavodsk refused to register the Yabloko party’s list of candidates for the Petrozavodsk City Council elections, ostensibly owing to the absence of documents required for registration. Karelian Yabloko had not received the notice of identified shortcomings required by law.

The day before, the St. Petersburg Electoral Commission had made a similar decision, refusing to register Yabloko’s list of candidates for the elections to the Legislative Assembly.

Yabloko considers the electoral commissions’ decisions to be unfounded and politically motivated, and intends to appeal them.

Yabloko’s list for the elections to the Legislative Assembly of the Republic of Karelia is headed by Inna Boluchevskaya, Deputy Chair of the parliament’s Committee on Healthcare and Social Policy, Olga Tuzhikova, a lawyer and Petrozavodsk City Council deputy, and Anna Pavlova, an assistant to a lawyer at the First Bar Association of the Republic of Karelia.

Emilia Slabunova, the current leader of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly and an Honoured Teacher of Russia, was barred from taking part in the elections. On 27 May, the Supreme Court of Karelia upheld the ruling of the Petrozavodsk City Court, which had found her guilty of “displaying extremist symbols” (Article 20.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences). The grounds for the administrative prosecution were a non-existent post on the politician’s Telegram channel, allegedly published in 2020. After the ruling entered into legal force, Emilia Slabunova lost the right to stand in elections for a year.