Press Release, 9.09.2019

According to preliminary data, all four Yabloko candidates to the Moscow City Duma won in their constituencies. This means that a new Moscow City Duma may see a faction, which will include Sergei Mitrokhin, Yevgeny Bunimovich, Maxim Kruglov and Daria Besedina. This will be the largest fraction in the entire history of the Yabloko participation in the Moscow City Duma elections.

Photo (from left to right): Yabloko deputies in the new Moscow City Duma – Yevgeny Bunomovich, Daria Besedina, Maxim Kruglov and Sergei Mitrokhin

On the evening of 8 September, Yabloko leaders held a briefing in the central election headquarters of Yabloko, during the briefing the first results of a single voting day were summed up.

The leader of Yabloko, Grigory Yavlinsky, called the struggle for the release of political prisoners among the priorities of the party faction in the new Moscow City Duma, “We see our task as the struggle for the release of political prisoners. There are many of them, they receive inadequate imprisonment terms, which have nothing to do with law, because there is not even a corpus delicti. These young people, whom they are now breaking their lives, are right, because the authorities have been rigging the elections for 25 years. A new generation has come who is tired of this, they will not put up with this.”

Grigory Yavlinsky thanked all four candidates from Yabloko for supporting voters. According to Yavlinsky, such results are largely due to the fact that “the Russian authorities – both the federal and the Moscow authorities – managed to conduct such an amazing campaign that has never taken place in Russia yet. “They staged an endless massacre in the streets, thanks to which people learned that there is the Moscow City Duma.”

Nikolai Rybakov, head of Yabloko election headquarters, emphasised that the Moscow City Duma campaign “was a real battle”. “In Moscow, we won the battle for the change in the country. We won against all those who represented the ruling party: United Russia, the Communists, the LDPR Party, despite all the dirt, counteraction and administrative resources [employed against opposition],” he said.

Rybakov also stressed that the party’s result in the elections to the Moscow city parliament was the best for the entire time that Yabloko participated in these elections. Rybakov also thanked the voters who voted for the party candidates, “We will do our best to change our country. We are very grateful to you for the tremendous support you have given us.”

“I have never seen so much pouring dirt and incredible abomination in the Moscow elections,” said Yevgeny Bunimovich, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Moscow, who managed to win an extremely tough campaign in Moscow electoral district No.6.

“But I have never met so many people who have not believed in this dirt and filth,” he continued. “I went around all the courtyards of our district and talked with people of different views. And they all spoke about one thing: they were tired. They are tired of the lies and reluctance [of the authorities] to hear people. It is impossible to bear anymore and, it seems to me, it is time for everyone to understand this.”

Bunimovich also addressed federal media reporters attending the briefing. “When you do not show the developments taking place in the city and country, you want to tell us: you do not exist,” the politician said. “But now I have a feeling that if you continue not showing this, it will mean that you do not exist.”

Chair of Yabloko Emilia Slabunova noted that the work of the Central Electoral Commission and subordinate electoral commissions was not credible, so the leadership of the Central Electoral Commission should resign.

Commenting on the preliminary results of the vote, Slabunova noted that Yabloko’s candidates were “precisely those deputies whom citizens wanted”. “In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other regions of the country, our deputies are the people that every city, region and country as a whole needs so much now,” Slabunova emphasised.

Alexander Gnezdilov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko, in his turn, recalled that before the election a number of strong candidates from Yabloko who collected thousands of Muscovites’ signatures in their support [according to the requirements of the law] and would be effective deputies, were not allowed to run.

“But neither this, nor the dirt on the part of the authorities acts,” Gnezdilov said. “People across the country, from the Far East to the western regions, demonstrate a will to change the power – both at the personal level and the level of the system, political institutions and attitudes towards people. This process have begun at full speed, and our task is to switch from the municipal and regional level to the federal level in 2021 and in 2024. So that it will become a road to freedom and prosperity, we all want our country to follow,” Gnezdilov said.

According to Ivan Bolshakov, political director of Yabloko’s electoral headquarters, the results of the vote mean that “Muscovites and residents of other cities told the authorities that all the thieves in the country that they don’t want to put up with it anymore, they want changes, they are not to be intimidated, deceived or fooled.” People see very well what is dirt and what is true, he said.

The election results are an important starting point from which changes will begin in Russia, that will lead to the fact that sooner or later not only justice will prevail, but democracy will finally emerge in our country, people will be able to choose their own government and determine how their country will live, Bolshakov noted.