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Russia's Justice Ministry is trying to liquidate the legal entity Alexey Navalny uses to run his presidential campaign

Source: Meduza

Russia’s Justice Ministry is asking a Moscow court to order the liquidation of the nonprofit foundation “Fifth Season,” which acts as the legal entity through which Alexey Navalny has managed his presidential campaign, renting office space and paying full-time staff.

A hearing will take place on January 22. Navalny’s team has responded by filing a countersuit against the Justice Ministry. Asked what the campaign will do without “Fifth Season,” Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s manager, says the team will “think of something.” After his candidacy application was rejected by the Central Election Commission, Alexey Navalny has called for a national boycott of Russia’s March 2018 presidential election.

“Fifth Season” has existed since April 28, 2014, originally acting as the official publisher of Leviathan, a kind of newsletter service produced by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation. Russia’s Justice Ministry rejected several attempts by Navalny’s campaign to establish a new legal entity for his presidential campaign, and so the politician’s team retrofitted “Fifth Season” to serve as his campaign’s legal face. The organization has entered roughly 70 rental agreements and hired about 300 people across the country.

So far, the Justice Ministry has refused to explain formally why it wants “Fifth Season” liquidated. Volkov says officials started investigating the nonprofit back in November 2017. He says the organization has been served papers with a range of accusations, such as claims that Fifth Season failed “to register its change of address in time.”

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