When the State Duma rushed through a bill banning anyone allegedly connected to extremist organizations from running for office, we of course understood that it was aimed at us—Alexei’s team. And at any independent candidate, really: some kind of “connection” to the ACF or the campaign offices can always be invented. After all, they even fabricated an ACF connection for a man who had posted a social media video titled “Jesus Slippers Are Your Last Hope.”
But even we didn’t think it would happen like this. Not just us—all lawyers were wondering how such a law could even work. Because if someone is barred from an election over ties to extremists, those ties have to be established.
And only one body can establish something like that: a court.
Obviously, a Putin-era court can do that without difficulty. But even it has procedures: a hearing, an appeal, and the ruling entering into legal force.
And even in a court like that, the person concerned should have the right to take part, because it is their rights that are being severely curtailed. But they didn’t even allow Navalny into the courtroom!
Lawyers were racking their brains trying to figure out how election commissions would remove candidates from the ballot.
But it’s simple. They don’t care—they just remove them, that’s all.
First, they didn’t allow Oleg Stepanov to open an election account and collect signatures. And now they have removed Ilya Yashin from the Moscow City Duma election.
With this magnificent line of reasoning: “Well, it’s Yashin. He and Navalny speak out against Putin together. His involvement in extremism is common knowledge.”
So, once again:
The process of declaring the ACF and Navalny’s campaign offices extremist organizations is still ongoing—the ruling has not yet entered into legal force and has not yet been appealed (we will absolutely do so within the prescribed time limit).
Ilya Yashin has never worked for the ACF or any of Navalny’s campaign offices. Nor was he ever a volunteer.
Ilya Yashin is not mentioned anywhere in any of the thousands of pages of the “case,” and he does not appear anywhere at all in the court ruling.
No court has ever found Yashin to be involved in the activities of an extremist organization.
What can be said for certain is that Yashin is involved in one thing: like us, he hates crooks and thieves.
Why this happened is obvious. United Russia is entirely justified in being afraid to let Yashin run. Even a Levada Center poll proves it. Sixteen percent are ready to vote for Yashin, while 15% support United Russia.
And the election campaign hasn’t even started yet. Given how effective Ilya is on the campaign trail, the margin of error in polls like these, and Yashin’s results in previous elections, it’s clear that he would crush any candidate from the ruling party.
The Kremlin understood that too, which is why they had already tried earlier to buy Ilya off, to persuade him to “renounce Navalny”—read about it in his post. Just renounce Navalny, and you’ll have everything: a party and a seat! (not really, of course)
Navalny is undoubtedly growing stronger, even after 158 days in prison. And with each passing day, he will grow stronger still.
And the best way to ruin the crooks’ plans in a situation where candidates are being barred from elections is Smart Voting. Sign up.