In Moscow City Duma race that has inspired daily protests, 233 candidates are permitted to register while 57 are rejected

Local election commissions in Moscow have registered 233 individuals as candidates for Moscow City Duma seats, Moscow City Election Commission Chair Valentin Gorbunov reported. 57 candidacy petitions were rejected.

According to Gorbunov, 179 of the 233 accepted candidates are running under the banner of a political party while 62 are independents. 39 of the 57 rejected candidates had planned to run as independents.

The group of candidates who were not permitted to register for the Moscow City Duma race included a number of well-known opposition figures, including municipal deputy Ilya Yashin, Anti-Corruption Foundation employees Lyubov Sobol and Ivan Zhdanov, former State Duma deputy Dmitry Gudkov, former Yabloko Party Chair Sergey Mitrokhin, and municipal deputy Yulia Galyamina. Those candidates have claimed that election commissions intentionally and illegally excluded them from the race due to their political views. Moscow residents have held daily protests on their behalf since July 14.