In the picture before you is Oleg Stepanov. He has been under house arrest for six months now in connection with the bogus "sanitary case". But that did not stop him from running in the State Duma elections. So his team gathered the required documents, had the candidate’s signatures notarized, and submitted the full set of paperwork to the election commission.
So what did the election commission do? It accepted the documents! The commission could not refuse to accept them. From that moment on, Stepanov officially became a nominated candidate, ready to begin collecting 15,000 signatures.
Only one tiny thing remained—to wait for the commission meeting where they would issue a piece of paper for Sberbank stating that Stepanov, through his representative, could open a special campaign account to pay for signature sheets, signature gatherers’ services, and everything else needed for the election.
After accepting the documents, the commission took the maximum legally allowed pause—three days. Then yesterday, 10 minutes before closing, it issued a ruling saying that the nominated candidate could not open a campaign account or appoint a financial representative!
And the most outrageous part is how they justify it. These crooks are citing the new law against the ACF (the Anti-Corruption Foundation) — the one that bans anyone from running for office if a court ruling has entered into force finding them involved in extremist activity. There is just one small problem.
Stepanov never worked for the ACF. There has never been any court ruling stating that he was connected to the extremist activities of any organization, let alone one that has entered into legal force. And that is what would be required to deny registration. But his registration is not even under consideration at this stage—the issue is only his nomination! What is more, even in the ACF’s own case, the ruling declaring it extremist has not yet entered into legal force!
By the same logic, the commission could just as well have refused by citing the law that bars people with dual citizenship from running, or those convicted of especially serious crimes, or even the instruction manual for a robot vacuum. It would have been just as irrelevant to either Stepanov’s nomination or the opening of his campaign account.
These crooks did not even bother to hide behind a veneer of legality—they simply decided not to let Stepanov open the account. Because they felt like it.
Obviously, this decision by the election commission will not hold up in court. So why do it? The answer is simple and banal: to obstruct the collection of signatures.
To be registered, a candidate must submit 15,000 signatures from district residents, and they have to be collected within 40 days—that is already close to impossible. Doing it while under house arrest is even harder. But even here, the collective Ella Pamfilova (chair of Russia’s Central Election Commission), smiling hypocritically, is saying: “We still won’t let you get anything done. And to justify it, we’ll cite the very law that obliges us not to interfere with your collecting those signatures.”
Oleg, of course, has no intention of giving up. His team is now preparing documents for court. During the election period, review deadlines are shortened.
Stepanov has not been denied registration. He has officially submitted his nomination papers, but by the time his team secures a decision allowing the account to be opened, there will be little time left. So become a signature gatherer.
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