Press release, 29.11.2016

The Supreme Court refused to sustain YABLOKO’s claim for recognition of the State Duma election results null and void. YABLOKO will dispute the judgement in a higher judicial instance.

“We expected that the court would pass such a judgement, it displays the true values of our government. It can be classified as failure of the authorities to respond to the violation of law,” YABLOKO Chairperson Emilia Slabunova noted. According to Slabunova, the arguments of the Central Electoral Commission, which were produced during the trial, that the election fraud was insignificant and cannot constitute grounds for overturning the result of the poll do not stand up to any criticism.

Emilia Slabunova promised that the party would dispute the judgement of the Supreme Court and would go as far as the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

YABLOKO’s lawyer Alexei Syuzumov asked the court to call for evidence to prove the election fraud at the polling stations in a large number of regions of Russia. However, Dmitry Voronov, a representative of the Central Electoral Commission, declared against calling for the evidence claiming that the check of the vote result at certain polling stations did not fall within the competence of the Supreme Court. His stand was supported by the Prosecutor General’s Office and the panel of judges.

“The fact that the Supreme Court did not call for the evidence of the election fraud, which we needed in order to base our stand, displays that the court did not perform its function – it failed to hold a careful and impartial consideration of the facts of the case,” YABLOKO Deputy Chair Nikolai Rybakov commented.

According to Rybakov, the trial did not enhance confidence in elections and government but reduced it. He promised to continue collecting evidence of election fraud and “to use all available legal means in order to prove that the latest election campaign did not determine the true expression of popular will”.

YABLOKO did not recognise the results of the election of the 7th State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. Manipulation with the turnout, mass-scale forced voting, as well as fraud during the vote count and issuing of [voting] protocols do not allow us to recognise the federal election conducted on 18 September fair and legitimate