Press Release, 24.08.2026

Photo: A file with Yabloko’s logo and slogan “For Peace and Freedom! For a Life Without Fear!” at the Electoral Commission of the Leningrad Region / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Yabloko has filed an administrative claim with the Leningrad Region Court seeking to overturn the ruling of the Leningrad Region Electoral Commission by which the party’s list of candidates was refused registration for the elections of deputies to the region’s Legislative Assembly. It should be noted that the Commission adopted the relevant decision on 13 August.

The claim sets out in detail four grounds for overturning the unlawful and unfounded decision of the Leningrad Region Electoral Commission.

1. The Electoral Commission’s ruling is unreasoned and imposes on Yabloko requirements not provided for by law.

The Electoral Commission explained its refusal to register Yabloko’s list by reference to a “violation of the requirements of the Federal Law ‘On Political Parties'”. However, the Commission’s ruling contains no specifics whatsoever: it does not cite a single provision of the law (article, part or clause) that Yabloko is alleged to have violated.

An abstract reference to the federal law, without indicating the specific provision breached, creates legal uncertainty and violates the party’s right to a defence.

2. The form of the ballot and the secret ballot procedure fully comply with the requirements of the law.

The second ground for refusing to register Yabloko’s list was the Electoral Commission’s finding that voting for the candidates (the list, it should be recalled, was nominated by the party’s Congress on 27 June) “had not taken place”.

This claim is untrue.

Moreover, the Electoral Commission has constructed a fiction: it holds that because the ballot paper (used by Congress delegates to vote in secret on the nomination of the list for Leningrad Region) did not contain a description of the electoral constituencies but only the candidates’ names, the delegates did not vote at all.

Yet the law imposes no requirements as to the form of the ballot paper.

In other words, the Electoral Commission’s conclusion that the party Congress did not vote for its own candidates is unsupported by any evidence.

3. The Electoral Commission’s ruling was issued “in violation of the staged sequence of the electoral process”.

The Commission certified Yabloko’s list as far back as 24 July; the corresponding ruling has not been challenged and remains in force. All the documents on which the Commission subsequently based its finding of violations had been submitted to it before certification. Refusing registration on grounds relating to the nomination procedure amounts to revisiting a decision on certification that has already entered into force, which the law does not permit.

4. The Electoral Commission failed in its duty to notify Yabloko of the shortcomings it had identified: the Commission did not inform the party of the shortcomings that later became the grounds for refusal.

In the claim filed with the Leningrad Region Court, Yabloko insists that the Electoral Commission’s decision to refuse registration of the party’s list of candidates is unlawful and must be overturned, and that Yabloko’s list must be registered to take part in the elections.

It should be noted that in 2026 Yabloko’s candidates continue to fight for seats in the regional parliaments of the Kaliningrad, Novgorod, Pskov, Sverdlovsk and Tomsk Regions. In the Pskov Region, meanwhile, a court will, on 25 August, hear a claim by the Rodina party seeking to overturn the registration of Yabloko’s list on absurd and unlawful grounds.

The party’s lists have been removed from the elections in St. Petersburg and Karelia. The grounds for removal are purely political, aimed at preventing Yabloko’s candidates from taking part in campaigns precisely in those regions where the party traditionally enjoys broad support among voters. Yabloko is challenging the decisions to remove its lists in the courts.

Thirteen Yabloko candidates nominated in single-mandate constituencies remain in the elections in St. Petersburg, along with a further 12 in Karelia.