Press Release, 27.09.2021

Photo: A queue of budget workers made vote on September 17 / Photo by the Press Service of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko

On 25 September, the Regional Council of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko adopted a statement on non-recognition of the elections to the Novgorod Regional Duma as free, democratic and fair.

“The Novgorod regional branch of the Yabloko Party does not recognise the results of the elections to the Novgorod Regional Duma, since they were achieved in the course of an non-free and unequal election campaign, as well as in connection with gross violations of the law on voting days, which led to a significant distortion of the expression of voters’ will. Like five years ago, they stole the representation of our voters in the Novgorod Regional Duma.

The Novgorod Regional Duma, elected through a controlled procedure, neither reflect the opinion of the residents of the Novgorod Region, nor has political legitimacy.

On the threashold of the elections, repressive amendments were made to the electoral legislation aimed at hindering the activities of opposition parties and candidates: a ban on the participation in elections of those candidates who received the “stigma” of being involved in the activities of “extremist organisations”, the obligation of parties and candidates to mark campaign materials with the “stigma” of “affiliation with a person acting as a foreign agent ”. At the same time, the authorities can recognise absolutely any opposition figure, a candidate or a party undesirable for the authorities as a “foreign agent” and “extremist”. The Yabloko Party became such a party. The Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region with followed the repressive legislation particular zeal and applied these innovations exclusively to the Novgorod regional branch of the Yabloko party.

Two candidates Roman Maksimov and Maksim Nikitin were unlawfully excluded from the list of the Yabloko party at the suit of the Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region, allegedly for “involvement in extremist activities”. Virtually the fact that on 23 January the young people went on a rally in Sofia Square in Veliky Novgorod in defence of Alexei Navalny and all political prisoners was considered to be to so-called “participation”.

The Novgorod Regional Electoral Commission assigned the status of persons affiliated with a foreign agent, to our candidates – ambulance paramedics Valentina Anatolyevna Beletskikh and Tatyana Ivanovna Rumyantseva for their participation in the independent medical trade union Alliance of Doctors, Ksenia Fyodorovna Cherepanova for participation in the All-Russian public movement in defence of the rights of voters GOLOS (on the threashold of voting, GOLOS, a number of media outlets and individual journalists were recognised as so-called “foreign agents”) and the Yabloko party was obliged to mark all campaign materials with a special stigma [of having candidates affiliated with “foreign agents”]. Thus, the Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region unleashed a propaganda campaign against candidates from the Yabloko party and the party as a whole, creating a biased negative attitude towards our candidates and the party. We have repeatedly noted that we did not recognise the status of “foreign agents” in relation to our candidates. Despite the fact that no evidence of affiliation was presented, the Electoral Commission entered false information on the ballot papers.

At the same time, the Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region did not mark the list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the candidate of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Nikolai Firsov, who, like the candidates from Yabloko, participated in the Alliance of Doctors trade union and was Deputy Chairman of the primary trade union organisation of the Borovichi Ambulance Station, with the stigma of a “foreign agent”. We believe that there was simply no order [from the authorities] for the Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region to sigmatise the systemic party – the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. It is obvious that the Electoral Commission of the Novgorod Region adhered to double standards during the election campaign.

Forcing voters to vote [for pro-government candidates and parties], which does not allow us to speak of the freedom of choice, is one of the problems of the Russian elections that has not been resolved for years. However, the introduction of a three-day vote created additional opportunities for coercion.

The practice of “migration” of voters and their administrative transfer to polling stations has become widespread in the Novgorod region. The introduction of the three-day voting allowed many employers to control the participation of their employees in the elections. Huge queues that the commissions could not cope with for several hours at a large number of precincts throughout the region, on Friday, 17 September, were the evidence of this. The forced vote unambiguously distorted the voting results in favour of the ruling United Russia party.

The safety and inaccessibility of ballots was not ensured during the three-day voting period (at night). We have documented cases of damage of security bags with ballots, unsealed safes and voting rooms. In fact, favorable conditions were created for the substitution of ballots in security bags at polling stations. The party headquarters received reports about the replacements of security bags with ballots, as well as the issuance of ballots to persons who could not vote.

We can not recognise the elections of deputies of the Novgorod Regional Duma as free, democratic and even minimally fair.

It was not an ELECTION, but an administratively controlled procedure for establishing the voting results that had been pre-planned by the authorities. We do not recognise them.

We continue to work in the interests of the future of Russia and the Novgorod region. We will definitely ensure that there are free and fair elections in Russia, and their results reflect the real expression of the will of citizens. Power will belong to the people, not to a handful of people who usurped it through electoral fraud,” the statement runs.