Press Release, 11.09.2022

At a briefing on the final election day, 11 September, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov said that the main task of Yabloko in these elections was fulfilled: in 12 regions of Russia, hundreds of thousands of citizens had the opportunity to peacefully and safely declare their attitude to what was happening in the country, Ukraine and the world. All candidates campaigned under the slogan “For Peace and Freedom!”. In spite of the fact that the candidates have programmes for their districts and regions, candidates understand that no change is possible until there is peace.

In total, 25 lists of candidates from Yabloko were registered in 12 subjects (in the Pskov and the Moscow regions). Yabloko nominated 462 candidates: 161 candidates were nominated by lists, 299 by single-mandate constituencies, of whom 179 candidates ran in Moscow.

Electoral commissions registered only 372 candidates: 234 in single-mandate constituencies, including 132 in Moscow. Registration was denied to 42 candidates, including 24 candidates in Moscow. After that, 25 candidates were removed throughout the country, 23 of them in Moscow.

Two candidates for the positions of  regional heads (the Novgorod and the Yaroslavl regions) did not pass the municipal filter (collection of a certain number of signatures of municipal deputies, most of whom come from the ruling party, in favour of their nomination).

Sergei Mitrokhin, co-head of Yabloko’s campaign headquarters in Moscow and Moscow City Duma deputy, noted the unprecedented attention paid by the authorities to remote electronic voting. According to Mitrokhin, the lack of information about how the votes would be counted indicated falsification of the results. This neutralized the active work of the Yabloko headquarters and candidates.

Maxim Kruglov, co-head of the Yabloko campaign headquarters in Moscow and leader of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, added that the campaign was conducted in the conditions of a special police operation and military censorship. Kruglov expressed the hope that Muscovites took advantage of the legal and probably the last opportunity to cast their vote for peace.

Kirill Goncharov, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow branch of Yabloko, spoke about violations in the elections in Moscow. In particular, he said that he had come to the briefing from a polling station in the Krylatskoye district, where there found ballot papers pre-marked for “correct” candidates. Kirill Goncharov also added that observers and candidates from Yabloko were under pressure throughout the all the three days of voting.

Andrei Morev, the current head of the Yakimanka district in Moscow, who had been removed from the election on politically motivated charges of “demonstrating extremist symbols”, said that a triad of “the Mayor’s office – police – court” was formed against the candidates, which removed Yabloko candidates. Morev urged Russian citizens to participate in the elections so that to demonstrate their stance for peace.