Press Release, 8.09.2020

The Supreme Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan removed from 13 Yabloko candidates from the elections to the City Council of Neftekamsk in single-mandate constituencies. The pretext was an allegedly incomplete set of documents submitted by the Yabloko candidates to the electoral commission. The suits were filed by candidates from the ruling United Russia party and the territorial electoral commission. Cassation appeals were filed against the court decisions. Earlier, candidates from Yabloko managed to defend in the Supreme Court the Yabloko party list in the elections in the single electoral district of Neftekamsk.

The activists of the Bashkirian branch of Yabloko noted that the territorial electoral commission filed a lawsuit to cancel its own decision on registration of Yabloko’s single-mandate candidates, just a week after the decision on their registration and not for some newly discovered circumstances, as it is envisaged by the election law, but did this after the United Russia party lost a similar lawsuit in court to remove these candidates from the elections.

“Certainly, this is an order of the city authorities, since it was the Yabloko party activists who haunted the city administration throughout the year about the quality of water in the city, and also so that this water quality did not become much worse after the construction of a new chemical plant for combustion of hazardous waste in Kambarka”, Ilnur Salakhov, the leader of Yabloko in Neftekamsk, noted.

It should be noted the city of Neftekamsk elects its deputies to the city council on 13 September: 13 people are elected in 13 single-member constituencies, and another 13 deputies are elected in a single constituency. These mandates will be distributed between parties, depending on how many voters will vote for a particular party.