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Russia’s Supreme Court on Monday annulled the only liberal, anti-war party party Yabloko’ registration for the country’s parlimentary vote also known as the State Duma elections.
The ruling, which sidelines the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow’s war in Ukraine, came after the pro-Kremlin nationalist Rodina party filed a lawsuit on 7 August, seeking to remove Yabloko from the elections.
Reacting to the decision at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, Yabloko leader Nikolai Rybakov said that “there are no grounds at all for removing the party from the elections.”
Rybakov stressed that “all the documents had been checked by the Central Election Commission, and the decision to allow us to run was taken unanimously”, recalling that the Justice Ministry had repeatedly inspected the party for various violations but found nothing illegal.
He described Rodina’s claims as unsubstantiated and groundless.
Dozens of people came to the Supreme Court building in Moscow to show support for Yabloko.
Rodina leader and State Duma deputy Alexei Zhuravlyov argued that “lawyers have found numerous violations” in Yabloko’s election campaign.
According to him, “first and foremost this is foreign funding that does not go through the account”, as well as “extensive activity on banned social networks, which is financed from the West”.
Zhuravlyov also accused Yabloko of extremism. Rodina said it saw “signs of extremism” in Yabloko’s call for peace.
But Rodina was not the only party to oppose Yabloko. Leaders of other Russian parties also levelled accusations against Yabloko.
Chair of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov blamed his opponents for not supporting “the policy of strengthening Russian statehood” and for having “never once condemned the actions” of the Ukrainian authorities.
While LDPR leader Leonid Slutsky called for Yabloko to be designated an undesirable organisation because of its proposal to enter into peace talks with Kyiv.
Sergei Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, said that the Justice Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s Office should “take a close look at Yabloko because the party ‘opposes the special military operation’, ‘promises to conclude a peace that would disgrace the country’ and ‘supports foreign agents'”.
Russia’s Central Election Commission registered Yabloko’s federal list for the elections to the Russian parliament on 29 July. The party decided to run under the slogan “For peace and freedom.”
An anti-war party in Russia’s parliamentary elections
Yabloko’s election programme, made up of just 43 words, contains a call for “a ceasefire agreement, diplomacy, and the achievement of peace!”
For many, the registration of a party that advocates ending the war came as a surprise and has prompted much speculation about how and why this could have happened.
“A source close to the Central Election Commission believes that the logic behind allowing it is likely this: the authorities need a channel through which citizens can ‘vent’ their discontent. Better into Yabloko than into spoiling ballot papers or voting for the Communist Party,” Important Stories writes.
“Yabloko was registered according to a plan by the Presidential Administration. After the elections, the party’s low official result can be presented as the share of Russians who oppose the war,” Radio Liberty quotes political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky as saying.
Another widely circulated claim or belief is that Yabloko’s appearance on the ballot paper is needed by the Russian authorities to take part of the vote away from the increasingly popular New People party. “Yabloko has been let into the elections to take down ‘New People’,” writes Alexander Kynev, a specialist in Russia’s regional political processes, on social media.
Elections to the State Duma, along with various votes at different levels held at the same time, will take place in Russia over three days, from 18 to 20 September.