12.09.2026

Photo: Viktor Kogan-Yasny at a meeting with voters in Moscow, 8 September 2026 / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

Now, all the developments have driven the situation into confusion, chaos and hysteria. The removal of Yabloko’s federal list from the ballot [in the State Duma elections] — which came as no great surprise — has continued, contrary to my own assumptions (based on notions of our system, and its hidden internal “checks and balances”, that became outdated in an instant), in the form of a flash mob of removals of [Yabloko’s] regional lists and single-mandate candidates across various regions. Nobody knows what this will mean for us in the future.

But the future will inevitably arrive, and it is not impossible that a situation will suddenly emerge in which elections suddenly begin to fulfil the real purpose they are meant to serve. What should this look like?

First: a reasonable increase in the size of regional legislative assemblies, and the introduction, in all of them, of a mixed system of formation — by party lists and by single-mandate constituencies.

Second: voting in single-mandate constituencies should be held in two rounds.

Third. I am not in favour of an “against all” box [in the ballot papers], since its presence creates a false impression of a “universal additional candidate”, but there are various ways — with a paper ballot — to express protest at the absence, on the ballot paper, of the candidate (or candidates) one trusts. But it is very important that the option to clearly decline to open a given ballot should also appear, unambiguously and clearly, in electronic voting too, so that a refusal on a specific electronic ballot would be possible and would be recorded as an expression of will.

Fourth: it is clear that elections must become fair, transparent, genuinely financially clean, with genuinely equal protection against violations for everyone; that the registration procedure must be simple enough not to act as an insurmountable barrier and must not require political parties and candidates to field “armies of lawyers”; that removal from the ballot must be an exceptional measure; that, in disputed cases when possible violations are found, the maximum possible latitude should be left to the judgement of the voter; and that the very possibility of substituting results at any level must be ruled out.

Fifth. All of us — all of us — need to, and will continue to need to, live together! No one has, or ever will have, some other, imaginary country. Civil peace is the highest value. And we must ensure that it is honest, fair and, at the same time, based on compromise and goodwill — for the sake of the people, the country, and its future.

VIKTOR KOGAN-YASNY

is an Advisor to the Chairman of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party. Head of the public organisation “Regional Civil Initiative – the Right to Life and Civil Dignity”. One of the founders of the Memorial Human Rights Centre. Candidate of chemical sciences.