Registration of candidates for elections goes on

Press Release, 19.07.2019

Representatives of the Yabloko party will take part in 14 election campaigns of different levels in 13 regions of the Russian Federation. In many regions, registration of candidates has not ended yet. Many Yabloko candidates have not been registered in the elections or are facing difficulties with being registered in the race.

Two party candidates will participate in the by-election to the State Duma. Anna Cherepanova, Chair of the Novgorod branch of Yabloko and MP in the City Duma of Novgorod, is running in a single-mandate district in the Novgorod region, and Irina Skachkova, Deputy Chair of the Sverdlovsk Yabloko and school teacher, will campaign in the Sverdlovsk region.

Zulfiya Gaysina, human rights defender, managed to overcome the municipal filter in the election of the head of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Yabloko candidates will compete for deputy mandates in parliamentary elections in Moscow, the Sverdlovsk region, the Vologda region, the Pskov region, the Saratov region and in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Three Yabloko candidates managed to get registration in the Moscow City Duma elections: architect Daria Besedina (district No. 8), Yevgeny Bunimovich, Ombudsman for Children’s Rights in Moscow and member of the party’s Federal Political Committee (district No. 6) and Maxim Kruglov, expert of the Yabloko Anti-Corruption Policy Centre (district No. 14).

Dmitry Golovin, businessman and ex-deputy of the Yekaterinburg City Council, is running for the Legislative Assembly of the Sverdlovsk Region in single-mandate constituency No. 11.

Maxim Bombakov, Deputy Chairman of the Krasnoyarsk branch of Yabloko, runs for the regional Legislation Assembly in the Kirov single-mandate constituency No. 2.

Mikhail Dorofeyev, Chairman of the Vologda branch of Yabloko, participates in the elections to the regional parliament in the Gryazovets single-mandate constituency No. 13.

Ksenia Cherepanova will take part in the by-election in the Novgorod Regional Duma in district No. 1.

Arthur Gaiduk, emergency doctor and deputy of the City Council of Pskov, will run for the Pskov Regional Assembly of Deputies (district number 2).

Dr.Vera Afanasyeva, philosopher and writer, was registered as Yabloko’s candidate to the Saratov Regional Duma (district No. 2).

Yelena Panova, Chair of the Kurgan branch of Yabloko, will run for a deputy mandate of the Kurgan City Duma in the single-member constituency No. 6.

Yabloko will also take part in the municipal elections in St. Petersburg, Pskov, Moscow and Novgorod regions and in Bashkiria.

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

In addition, Yabloko managed to get registered a list of candidates to the Council of Deputies of the Kashira constituency (Moscow region). Engineer and economist Nikolai Kuzmin (district No. 13) is registered as a candidate from Yabloko for deputies of the Pskov City Duma, Ilnur Salakhov was registered in the elections to the Council of the City District of Neftekamsk (Bashkiria), Sergei Burdinsky, was registered in the elections to the Council of Borzinsky Municipal District (Trans-Baikal Territory).

Yabloko will also participate in the election of heads of rural settlements of the Novgorod region: Sergei Trofimov will run in the Yermolinsky rural settlement, Viktor Shalyakin in the Trubichinsky rural settlement and Denis Sergeyev in the Savinsky rural settlement.

Boris Vishnevsky, member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, and Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko, were not allowed to run in the gubernatorial elections in St.Peterburg and the Chelyabinsk region, respectively.

Five out of eight Yabloko candidates nominated for the Moscow City Duma election were not registered: ex party Chairman Sergei Mitrokhin (district No 43), Andrei Babushkin, human rights defender and member of the Human Rights Council under the President (district No 11), Yelena Rusakova, head of Municipal Council of the Gagarinsky district in Moscow (district No 37), Kirill Goncharov, Editor-in-Chief of the “We Are Muscovites” newspaper (district  No 32) and Anastasia Bryukhanova, municipal deputy of Schukino district, Moscow (district No 42).

In addition, the entire list of Yabloko candidates was removed from the election of deputies of the Kurgan City Duma. Vera Afanasyeva was not allowed to by-election of deputies of the Saratov City Duma in the single-mandate constituency No. 10.

Nikolai Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and head of Yabloko’s election headquarters, notes that the party actively participates in the elections, despite the fact that the system is designed kin such a way so that to prevent democratic candidates on the ballot. This was perfectly demonstrated by the electoral commissions of St. Petersburg, which refused to register 250 candidates for no reason.

“It’s not for the first year that a well-coordinated mafia structure operates there, and the Central Electoral Commission and the law enforcement turn a blind eye to this. Our candidates can offer an alternative, the party enjoys high support in St. Petersburg, and the current government is afraid of this. It is for this reason that Boris Vishnevsky has not been registered in the gubernatorial election. Yaroslav Shcherbakov in Chelyabinsk is in a similar situation. If they had a fair competition, they would have had every chance of winning,” Nikolai Rybakov emphasised.

“A similar scenario was used for the Moscow City Duma elections – Yelena Rusakova, Sergei Mitrokhin, Kirill Goncharov, Andrei Babushkin and Anastasia Bryukhanova were denied registration. But Yevgeny Bunimovich, Maxim Kruglov and Daria Besedina managed to break through this wall. Now we will directly engage in campaigning,” Rybakov added.

According to Nikolai Rybakov, Russia has been demonstrating a negative selection [of candidates] for several years, and this can lead to serious public protest.

“It is already clear that the statements of the political consultants of the Presidential Administration have any credibility for voters. And the only way for them to maintain their power is mass-scale fraud at all stages of the elections. However, we should not despair, there will be a change of power soon one way or another. And we should be ready for this transfer,” Rybakov concluded.