MOSCOW, October 27 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) on Thursday has registered a federal list of Yabloko party which is running for the State Duma in the parliamentary election due on December 4.
The list numbers 363 candidates from 78 regional groups. A group of ten party leaders is headed by the party founder, Grigory Yavlinsky. Yabloko leader Sergei Mitrokhin and head of the party's Green Russia faction Alexei Yablokov are the three Yabloko candidates on top of the list.
Yabloko’s registration by the CEC was a predictable fact. The signatures collected in Yabloko's support, which were turned over to the CEC on October 17, considerably surpassed the required number of 150,000 necessary to register a party. The number of incorrect signatures rejected made up 2.3 percent against a permissible critical number of 5 percent.
According to Yabloko official site, the party numbers more than 55,000 candidates and has 76 branch departments.
The party which is advocating democratic principles, was founded in 1993 on the basis of the Yavlinsky- Boldyrev-Lukin election bloc, whose names were spelled to use the initial letters of each name to name the party.
Yabloko was represented in the State Duma four times. Its best success was in the 1993 parliamentary election when Yabloko received 7.86 percent of votes in its support, and consequently, 45 mandates in the State Duma
In 1995 Yabloko result was 6.89 percent and in 1999 - 5.93 percent.
In 2003 Yabloko proved to be short of the required 5 percent of votes ( 4. 3 percent) and had no deputies in the Duma elected on a party ticket, but it managed to win four Duma mandates in single -member constituencies.
In the parliamentary election held in December 2007 Yabloko collected 1. 59 percent of votes only.