References to state companies’ “theft and abuse” were removed from the Moscow mayoral candidates poster.
The Moscow election commission removed from the consolidated poster containing information on all candidates for mayor of the capital details about opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption work in the blogosphere. Interfax reported this on Thursday, August 8. At a commission meeting, chairman Valentin Gorbunov said that the poster should contain only biographical information: “born, married, studied, worked.” According to him, many politicians keep blogs these days, and that cannot be considered biographical data. Gorbunov also said he considered the wording proposed by Navalny’s campaign staff inappropriate. The disputed paragraph stated that the opposition politician posts information on his blog about “theft and abuse” by major state corporations, including Gazprom, VTB, Transneft, and Russian Railways. At the same time, the commission chairman said, only a court can assert someone’s involvement in crimes. The commission members also backed their chairman. In particular, secretary Yury Yermolov proposed replacing the wording “on issues of theft and abuse” with “on issues of business operations.” Commission member Ivan Petrov said he did not understand what this paragraph had to do with the candidate and agreed with the decision to remove it entirely. http://lenta.ru/news/2013/08/08/blogger/