Moscow Protesters Demand Opposition Candidates Be Included on City-Council Ballots

Around 1,000 people have gathered in central Moscow to demand that opposition candidates be included on ballots for the September 8 Moscow City Duma elections.The protest on July 14 was billed as a meeting between opposition leaders and their voters after signatures sponsoring several candidates were rejected by the Moscow election commission.The candidates had to submit 4,500 verifiable signatures of support by July 6 to be eligible to run in the September elections.The Moscow mayor’s office has described the rally as “illegal” and demanded the action be postponed.Demonstrators chanted, “We are the authority here,” “Putin is a thief,” and “Putin resign.”However, the police have not detained anyone yet and the protest has continued peacefully.Ilya Yashin, one of the candidates who saw signatures invalidated, called on demonstrators to march with him to the mayor’s office to state their election demands.Once there, they symbolically knocked on the door so that Mayor Sergei Sobyanin would “hear” their anger over the election snub.Then Yashin and Lubov Sobol, another opposition candidate who was denied the chance to run, led the crowd to the headquarters of the Moscow Election Commission, where they demanded Commissioner Valentin Gorbunov exit the building to meet them.As they stood outside the headquarters, the crowd chanted “This is not an election, this is fraud,” “We are the authority here,” and “Allow fair elections!”Gorbunov is at his dacha, Yashin later told the crowd.Sobol, a 31-year old lawyer, said she would continue her hunger strike outside the commission headquarters until Gorbunov came to meet her and other candidates.Protesters in the crowd told RFE/RL that they planned to stay through the night as well to support the candidates.However, some lamented that the turnout was small and said they did not think the demonstration would have an impact on the commission.Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny, who was released from 10-days of house arrest on July 11, has not yet arrived at the rally.During the protest outside the commission, Sobol shared on social media examples of signatures she said were unfairly rejected.The politician said one of her signatures was denied because the commission considered the voter’s address invalid. Yet, another voter at the same address was approved by the commission, she saidSobol also said the commission rejected her very first supporter even though the voter posed for a photograph after signing his name at her campaign office.
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