MOSCOW, August 12. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court has upheld a claim of Sergei Mitrokhin from the Yabloko party against the decision of a district election commission that denied him registration as a candidate in the Moscow City Duma election, court Spokesperson Ulyana Solopova told TASS.
The court "overturned the judgement of a district election commission," she said.
On July 16, a district election commission denied registration to Mitrokhin due to a large number of inauthentic or non-valid signatures collected in his support. Mitrokhin appealed to the Moscow City Election Commission that rechecked the candidacy lists and ruled that 415 signatures were non-valid, while 4,525 were authentic, enough to register him as a candidate. It suggested that the district election commission review its ruling. However, it once again denied registration for Mitrokhin, putting the number of authentic signatures as 4,451 after repeated checks, which is not enough to register a person as a candidate.
The Moscow City Duma elections are due on September 8. A total of 233 candidates, including 171 candidates from political parties and 62 self-nominees have been registered. Registration was denied to 57 potential candidates, including 39 self-nominees. A total of 129 candidates will be contesting Moscow City Duma seats from parliamentary parties: 45 from the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), 44 from the Communist Party (KPRF) and 40 from A Just Russia. Among the registered candidates there are also nominees from the parties Yabloko, the Communists of Russia, Rodina, the Greens and the Party of Growth.