Press Release, 28.08.2017

On 28 August, the Koptevsky District Court of Moscow annulled the registration of candidates from the YABLOKO party Andrei Simonov, Anton Chernykh, Tatyana Agafonova-Lenskaya and Andrey Natalchuk in the municipal elections.

Given the circumstances of the case, YABLOKO is convinced that this decision has political, rather than legal reasons.

The complaint against YABLOKO to the local electoral commission was filed by a company engaged in advertising in the blocks of flats. The company accused YABLOKO candidates of placing their propaganda products on the company’s announcement boards in the halls of blocks of flats. It stated damages in the amount of 6,240 rubles, but did not provide any justification for this damage. Also, the court did not provide any evidence that the placement of materials was made by the YABLOKO candidates.

Based on this complaint, the territorial electoral commission filed four lawsuits in court against YABLOKO stating that YABLOKO had abused freedom of the media.

Commenting on the court’s decision, Andrei Simonov suggested that the placards could have been placed on the boards by the company or YABLOKO’s competitors.

Simonov also adds, that all the terms for appealing today’s decision to cancel registration have expired – it is impossible to do this technically. Therefore, the court did not have the right to take up the law suit.

“The real reason for our withdrawal from the elections is our success in the election campaign,” Andrei Simonov says. “We have already held dozens of meetings with the residents of the district, and planned to conduct 46 more meetings in the remaining two weeks before the elections. We have been conducting the most active campaign in Koptevo. It is clear that the competitors were frightened. ”

It should be also noted that in early August the Savelovsky District Court in Moscow also withdrew four YABLOKO candidates from the municipal elections in another Moscow district – Sokol. Due to the appeal in the Moscow City Court, the registration of two YABLOKO candidates was reinstated.

In total about 700 candidates from YABLOKO participate in the Moscow municipal campaign of 2017.