Opposition politician Ilya Yashin barred from Moscow City Duma by-elections due to links to Navalny
Opposition politician Ilya Yashin, the municipal deputy for Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district, says that he’s been banned from running in the Moscow City Duma by-elections, which are set to take place in September.
“The election commission recognized me as an extremist because of my support for Navalny and banned me from running,” Yashin wrote on Twitter on June 25. “I haven’t seen such brazen lawlessness for a long time.”
In a video posted on YouTube, Yashin reiterated that the election commission banned him from the upcoming by-elections due to his support for jailed opposition politician Alexey Navalny, whose political movement was recently outlawed as “extremist.”
According to Yashin, the commission cited the so-called “anti-FBK law” — a recently adopted piece of legislation that prohibits anyone linked to an illegal extremist group from running in elections in Russia at all levels.
Ilya Yashin was planning to run in Moscow’s 37th constituency, where the deputy’s mandate was vacated after the death of Nikolai Gubenko, a municipal councilman from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF).