The ALDE party, 20.09.2016

On Sunday 18 September Russian citizens went to the polls to elect a new State Duma. Commenting on the results of the parliamentary elections in Russia, ALDE Party President Hans van Baalen MEP said: “The Duma elections were yet another Putin show, without a free and fair chance for the opposition.”

“The historic low turnout is a very evident and clear silent protest of the Russian people against the oppressive regime of Vladimir Putin and that their vote wouldn’t make a difference,” he added. “YABLOKO and PARNAS are both members of the ALDE Party and will continue to receive ALDE moral support in their continued fight to bring liberalism and a vibrant democracy to Russia.”

“The international community should not recognise the elected Duma members from Crimea, as this territory is still illegally occupied by Russia.”

Despite endeavouring to operate within an extremely tough environment, liberal opposition parties YABLOKO and PARNAS – both members of the ALDE Party – finished the night without a single Duma representative, and without the promise of any state funding for future campaigns which will further stifle their ability to voice opposition.

Early indications suggested that YABLOKO passed the threshold and enter regional parliaments with results of the regional elections run in parallel to be confirmed during the course of the day.

On behalf of YABLOKO’s leadership, Grigory Yavlinsky and Emilia Slabunova commented on the outcome of the elections. Yavlinsky noted that the party was aware that “it would be naïve to expect that with such a stance we would be invited to the State Duma.”

“If a party with such a stance could be part of the State Duma, it would have been a different country. Therefore, the most valuable for us was the fact that we, in our own country and in the most difficult moment, managed to tell what we considered the most important, and we were heard,” he added.

Watch Yavlinsky and Slabunova talking about the election results in Russian:

Following the election results, PARNAS leader Mikhail Kasyanov said in a press statement: “We regret that the elections to the State Duma were neither free nor fair. Elections were under the full control of the presidential administration and the security services. During the election campaign, the authorities carried out a large-scale special operation to discredit our party and our candidates.”

“Under such circumstances, we declare our firm resolve to continue the struggle in Russia,” concluded Kasyanov.

Both parties have pointed to very low turnouts in their traditional urban strongholds of Moscow and St. Petersburg, two cities where widespread protests were held after vote tampering in the 2011 parliamentary elections, followed by a Kremlin crackdown and mass arrests. Already, video footage of vote tampering and allegations of irregularities have emerged suggesting that other outside factors may have influenced the vote.

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