Election campaign manager Nikolai Rybakov commented on the preparation for the campaign
Press release, 4.10.2018

Yabloko is ready to nominated candidates to run in Moscow City Duma elections in all 45 constituencies. We have to collect approximately 5,000 voters’ signatures in every constituency. We understand that signature collection is a way to withdraw candidates who are out of favour [with the authorities]. However, we will make all possible effort.

Yabloko will open election campaign headwaters to prepare the candidates and their team members.

There are both experienced and young candidates among our candidates. It is likely that Sergei Mitrokhin and Irina Kopkina, Kirill Goncharov and Alexei Krapukhin, Andrei Morev and other heads of municipal districts as well as Yabloko’s municipal deputies will participate in the elections. If you want to become a candidate or join the election campaign, you are welcome to! We will launch a special website for volunteers, supporters and voters very soon.

The municipal election results last year proved that Yabloko is the second political force in Moscow. We will strengthen our authority.

One of our major tasks is to strengthen the authority ща the Moscow City Duma and change the its formation principle. We will campaign for the reintroduction of the proportional election system. A large city like Moscow with a complex social structure needs political coordination of the interests of different city communities and environments as well as a political discussion and public control. All this is possible only in a real city parliament. However, this is not the case with the present Moscow City Duma. The present formation model when the interests of 12 million of residents are “represented” by only 45 deputies elected by first-past-the-post voting turned the Duma into a stimulant under the Moscow Mayor’s office. Its only function is to stamp decisions made by the Mayor’s Office of the Presidential Administration.

Yabloko was supported by the Muscovites many times – at the federal, regional and local elections.

We welcome you to join our team!