St. Petersburg election commission denies Yabloko registration for city legislature race

St. Petersburg’s election commission has refused to register Yabloko party candidates for the city’s legislative assembly elections, the St. Petersburg-based news outlet Fontanka reported. Officials cited an error in the party’s paperwork as the formal reason.

Oleg Zatsepa, deputy head of the city election commission, said Yabloko had submitted a complete set of documents, including a financial report — but that the party’s authorized representative lacked the right to sign it.

“The financial report was not actually submitted, because it was signed by someone who did not have the authority to do so. This is considered an uncorrectable flaw,” Zatsepa said, as quoted by the Telegram channel Rotonda. Yabloko representative Pavel Shapchits told the meeting the commission had no grounds to deny registration:

Several hours before the formal denial, party leader Nikolai Rybakov sent a request to Russian Central Election Commission Chair Ella Pamfilova, asking her to intervene and send a CEC representative with the right to a decisive vote to the meeting.

The city election commission did register candidate lists from A Just Russia, New People, and Russia’s Communist Party (KPRF).

Sources for Meduza said that ahead of the State Duma elections, Russian authorities have stepped up pressure on Yabloko. The party is being pushed to withdraw from the elections or, at the very least, prevented from including well-known figures on its candidate list.

In December 2025, Nikolai Rybakov was fined 1,500 rubles under an administrative statute on displaying ‘extremist symbols.’ In June 2026, a court sentenced the party’s deputy chairman, Maxim Kruglov, to seven years in prison on charges of spreading “fakes” about the Russian army.