Election authorities in St. Petersburg have rejected all candidates from the liberal opposition party Yabloko who had sought to run in the city’s upcoming municipal elections, the local news outlet Bumaga reported on Monday.
Yabloko spokesman Dmitry Anisimov told Bumaga that all 83 members who filed paperwork to run for municipal council seats in September were barred from the ballot. A number of senior-ranking members within the party have openly called for a ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Anisimov said Yabloko, which characterized the mass ballot rejections as “political orders” from “above,” would appeal the rejections in court.
Since Moscow launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, opposition figures have been jailed, forced into exile and barred from running for political office. In May, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a ban on “foreign agents” — which includes some high-profile members of Yabloko — from running for any public office in Russia.
The pro-Kremlin United Russia party holds a majority in St. Petersburg’s more than 100 municipal councils, which serve as local legislative bodies in the country’s second-largest city.
Last week, Bumaga reported that members of the Communist Party, which often aligns itself with the Kremlin’s policies, received similar ballot rejections from election authorities in St. Petersburg.
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