Missing documents may disqualify Yabloko candidates

About 11 out of 25 candidates from the Yabloko party in the elections to the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly may be denied registration in single-member districts. As the party reported on July 21, district election commissions claim documents are missing — even though some candidates recorded the submission process on video.

Among those affected is Dmitry Khorzov, nominated in the Moskovsky District under constituency No. 20. The election commission stated that he did not submit a notice regarding the absence of foreign accounts. However, on the video provided by Yabloko, it is clear that this document was submitted. The party’s lawyers explained: «Documents are submitted, recorded in inventories (and in Khorzov’s case, also on video), after which they suddenly disappear (they are «missing»).» Yabloko considers this approach politically motivated.

A similar situation arose with other parties. For instance, A Just Russia reported that their candidate in single-member constituency No. 7, Manefa Koroleva, submitted documents to the territorial election commission No. 44. It later turned out that the confirmation did not include the mandatory certificate regarding the absence of foreign financial assets. Moreover, the entire procedure was recorded on audio. The party noted: «All documents were submitted under audio recording — the fact of submitting the full package is, as they say, in hand.» They called the commission’s behavior «a game of forgetfulness.»

Similar refusals were recorded in previous elections — election commissions claimed that opposition candidates had incomplete document packages, although the candidates insisted otherwise. For example, in 2024, documents went missing for some candidates from New People in the municipal elections.