Interpreter Staff

Russia Update: Opposition Candidates Stage Hunger Strike After Elections Rejection

July 28, 2015
Russia Update
Spotlight
The Bell
Leonid Volkov (at far right) and candidates Yegor Savin and Sergei Boyko, in front of a court house in Novosibirsk July 27 at a hearing where they were fired for protesting disqualification of their collected signatures to get on the ballot.

The Novosibirsk Region Elections Commission has rejected the opposition party Parnas from taking part in local elections by questioning hundreds of its signatures to get on the ballot. Activists have responded by staging a hunger strike.

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UPDATES BELOW

Opposition Activists Stage Hunger Strike at Novosibirsk Elections Commission After Rejection of Signatures for the Ballot
2015-07-28 17:35:19

The Novosibirsk Region Elections Commission has rejected the
opposition party Parnas from taking part in local elections by
questioning hundreds of its signatures to get on the ballot, Novaya Gazeta reported.

Leonid
Volkov, a leader of the party, attempted to plead their case in a
meeting at the regional elections commission, but nevertheless the
commission voted to exclude his party from the list of candidates
accepted.

As a gesture of protest, Volkov refused to leave the
office of commission head Petukhov. He and two candidates, Yegor Savin
and Sergei Boiko, announced a hunger strike in protest and staged a
sit-in.

Soon police arrived to escort them out of the building and charge them with disturbing the peace.

Translation: We’re on our way from the police station to the court with great pomp (why were 18 police officers taken away from their work?)


Boiko was fined 500 rubles ($8.3) and Savin was fined 800 ($13.3) rubles. Volkov’s hearing was postponed. Two others were also fined: a candidate, Kirill Levchenko was fined 1000 ($16.6) rubles and a lawyer, Vladlen Los, was fined 500 rubles.

Volkov said in a blog post he would continue the hunger strike along with Savin and Boiko to demand the right of these candidates to take part in elections.

Volkov served as the campaign manager for Aleksey Navalny when he ran
for mayor of Moscow in 2013 and attracted about 30% of the vote.

A coalition of democratic parties collected more than 17,000
signatures in Novosibirsk, then carefully selected 11,682 of them so that no reason for
objections could be found. They turned over to police about 20
signature-gatherers who had showed up during their supporters’ drive to
deliberately falsify signatures in order to get them discredited.

The
elections commissioner picked on a number of minor issues, for example, if a
signature strayed into the margins of the page, it was disqualified. In
this way, 1,495 names were found “in violation” which then meant Parnas
didn’t have enough to clear the threshold.

The opposition’s
strategy in recent months has been to hold “primaries” in various
provincial towns to help elect the opposition candidate to run against
the ruling party, United Russia, and other pro-Kremlin parties.
Activists have attempted to hold a number of public rallies, in some
cities they have been cancelled or if allowed to go forward, hecklers
have been sent to disrupt them. Earlier in Novosibirsk, one opposition
campaigner was beaten by unknown assailants.

Recently RPR Parnas,
originally a coalition, attempted to change its name to Popular
Alliance to be less cumbersome. Yet a pro-government party also applied
to change its name to the same one in order to dislodge the opposition.

Last
week, Aleksey Navalny published a blog criticizing Igor Shuvalov, first
deputy prime minister, for owning an apartment in London that was well
beyond his salary. The picture of the flat in Westminster was widely
re-posted.

Translation: Navalany: Russian Vice Premier Shuvalov owns an elite apartment in the center of London for £11,5 million
Translation: But for the sake of Putin, people are willing to tighten their belts, Shuvalov believes…

Next followed rumors that the Kremlin had given orders to the state
media not to mention Navalny in the press. But presidential
administration spokesman Dmitry Peskov then denied there was any such
order.

— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick