Press Release, 23.07.2019

The St. Petersburg regional branch of the Yabloko party will take part in a rally against arbitrariness in the elections, which will be held in Lenin Square by the Finlandskiy Railway Station on 24 July at 19:00. Representatives of about 30 political parties, public movements and organisations of St. Petersburg  plan to attend the rally.

“Electoral commissions of the city have been exercising their arbitrary rule over independent candidates for municipal deputies for several weeks already – every day brings new denials of registration under the most absurd pretexts. We urge all concerned citizens to join the rally against this indecency! ”runs the appeal of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko.

St. Petersburg municipal elections attracted the attention of the whole country not only because of the use of an administrative resource there, but also because of criminal arbitrariness on the part of regional authorities and electoral commissions seeking to prevent opposition candidates from running in the elections.

In St. Petersburg, Yabloko nominated 547 candidates for deputies of 85 municipal councils of the city. Today only 227 candidates were able to register, more than 250 received unlawful denials in registsation, the party’s election headquarters intends to challenge all the refusals issued to Yabloko candidates in the City Electoral Commission and the Central Electoral Commission.