Press Release, 25.08.2020

The Arkhangelsk Regional Court rejected the claim of Oleg Mandrykin, Yabloko’s candidate for Governor, against the regional electoral commission. The activist backed by the Stop Shies coalition [a public movement fighting against creation of dumps of garbage imported to the region from Moscow] challenged the denial of registration as a candidate for Governor.

On August 7, the Electoral Commission of the Arkhangelsk region refused to register Oleg Mandrykin as a candidate for Governor of the Arkhangelsk region. According to the electoral commission, Mandrykin allegedly did not pass the municipal filter – did not manage to collect the required number of municipal deputies signatures in favour of his registration in the race.

The candidate for Governor of the Arkhangelsk region from Yabloko appealed to the regional court against the refusal of the electoral commission to register him in the elections. In the statement of claim, Mandrykin cited numerous facts of abuse in the collection of signatures of municipal deputies by the acting head of the region, Alexander Tsybulsky, and other registered candidates.

“All our petitions are asking to deal with all the double signatures [collected by other candidates], with all this massive collection of signatures, which significantly exceed the 198 signatures allowed by law, all these violations of the law were clearly ignored. All our arguments that they openly opposed us administratively were not considered by the court, all our applications were rejected,” Oleg Mandrykin noted.

“Moreover, the court even rejected our petitions with a request to invite witnesses who are ready to testify under oath in court the ugly violations that took place during the collection of signatures. This is sad, because, unfortunately, it deprives the residents of the Arkhangelsk region of real competitive elections. But this does not mean that we have finished the struggle,” the Yabloko candidate added.

In February 2020, entrepreneur and environmental activist Oleg Mandrykin won the People’s Governor electronic vote from the Stop-Shies coalition which fights against turning the region in the garbage dump and joins together 36 organisations.