More than 60 opposition candidates were removed from elections over “extremism,” document problems, and foreign shares

More than 60 opposition candidates were removed from elections over “extremism,” document problems, and foreign shares

The number of single-mandate district candidates opposed to United Russia who have been removed or barred from taking part in the September elections to the State Duma and regional legislative assemblies has almost doubled over the past two weeks — from 36 to 64 people, Verstka calculated.

Most often, candidates were removed from elections for “extremist symbols” — 35 people. Of those, 20 candidates were deprived of the right to run over posts about Alexei Navalny or organizations linked to him.

Another 14 candidates had their registration canceled because of copyright violations or document problems — this mostly happened following complaints from rivals in their electoral districts.

According to Verstka’s calculations, at least 42 Yabloko candidates in total were removed from the elections or barred from running. The party lost half of them (23 people) in the past two weeks.

For comparison, over the entire period the Communist Party had 11 candidates removed from elections, including the online-popular politician Nikolai Bondarenko. In only eight cases did the restrictions affect representatives of other parties (Rodina, A Just Russia, LDPR, New People).

🟪The count included cases in which the formal grounds for removal from elections were social media posts, foreign assets, copyright or document claims, as well as situations in which candidates withdrew under pressure.

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