July 31, 2013

Tomorrow, on August 1, the Klimovsk City Court will examine the plea filed by Pavel Laptev, candidate from the Just Cause party at the election for the post of the head of the Klimovsk city, the Moscow Region. Laptev demands annulment of the decision of the electoral commission on registration of Alexander Gunko, YABLOKO’s candidate for the post of the city head and leader of the Moscow Region branch of YABLOKO.

On July 6, Gunko was one of the first candidates who submitted their documents to the Klimovsk Electoral Commission for their registration in the campaign. On July 19, the Electoral Commission adopted a decision on the registration of Alexander Gunko as a candidate for the head of the city.

“On 29 July, I received a message from the Klimovsk City Court that on July 31 the court will consider a plea of one of the candidates on cancelling my registration, and today preliminary hearings have been held,” Gunko said.

It turned out that Pavel Laptev, a self-nominated candidate from the Just Cause party and Deputy Chairman of the Council of Deputies of Klimovsk, found “gross errors” in Gunko’s documents and he hoped that these “errors” would enable him to prevent Gunko from running at the election from YABLOKO.

In reality Laptev indicated some things that may not be considered even as flaws. “In my documents, I indicated that I have higher education, and it should be stated like higher-professional. A copy of my passport was not submitted in full: without the copy of the first page running that this is a “passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation”, therefore, [Laptev] concluded that the fact of my citizenship was not proved,” Gunko said. (Ed. Normally citizenship is indicated on the second page; whereas the first page is regarded as a passport cover).

The hearings in the Klimovsk City Court will be held tomorrow at 12:00.