Press release, 25.07.2017

A single ballot day will take place in the Pskov Region on 10 July. The Pskov branch of Yabloko nominated 251 candidates.

The elections to the Pskov City Duma are likely to be very competitive: there are 293 candidates on the lists nominated by political parties, and 121 nominees are running in 15 single mandate constituencies. According to a number of experts, such competition may give way to dirty political technologies.

Deputy of the Pskov Region Legislative Assembly and Chair of the regional branch of Yabloko, Lev Shlosberg, claims that the municipal election of 2017 turned into a dump. In his comment to the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Shlosberg says that the ruling party represents the main threat for the transperancy of the electoral process.

“Do you remember the situation around the “100 protsentov” (100 per cent) newspaper during the election campaign of 2016. There were five or six additions of that rubbish newspaper. The paper contained sophisticated slander from cover to cover. The electoral commission of the Pskov Region stated that the paper was an illegal campaigning material and it must be removed. But nobody removed it. It was handed out by United Russia campaigners together with campaign materials for the ruling party and its candidate for a State Duma deputy Alexander Kozlovsky”.

“The newspaper contained absolute lies, but we could not ascertain its founder, editor-in-chief, printing establishment. The output data were fraudulent. And all this was handed out together with United Russia’s campaigning materials. I think that those people who turned the parliamentary elections of 2016 into a dump are going to do the same thing this year. One cannot expect fair elections when the ruling party takes part in them.

United Russia has already issues a newspaper where all oppositional candidates are represented as puppets of the businessman and deputy, United Russia’s ex-sponsor, who left Russia. The election campaign started with spreading lies about Yabloko, and these lies come from United Russia.

We are going to act, of course. I will make a criminal complaint on slander of such editions are printed again.

It is clear that the ruling party has two aims which can be achieved by means of dirty election technologies. The first aim is to prevent people from voting. When a person sees such a flow of dirt, he does not feel like touching anything connected with it, including voting. The second aim is to label their rivals. We will stand against this,” Yabloko leader says.