Moscow City Electoral Committee: foreign agents can run for mayor of Moscow

Foreign agents have the opportunity to run for mayor of Moscow, but their status must be indicated in all documents and publications. About this in an interview with TASS told Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Electoral Committee Dmitry Reut.

“Foreign agents are not prohibited from participating in elections. They can not only vote, but even run for office. The only thing is that they should be indicated: in all media, in subscription lists, in general, in any publications. If a foreign agent is registered, then the ballot papers, information and campaign materials should have the appropriate designation,” he said.

The requirements for candidates from parties and self-nominated candidates are similar, Reut specified. The only difference is that the former do not collect signatures from voters, since they are exempt from this, while self-nominated candidates must submit from about 38,000 to almost 41,000 signatures to the Moscow City Electoral Commission – “the reserve is provided in case of errors in the signature lists,” he said in an interview.

The rest of the requirements, Reuth continued, are the same. It is necessary to submit a number of documents, go through the municipal filter – collect 110 signatures of municipal deputies. “Such a filter was introduced a long time ago, not the first mayoral elections are held in such regulations, in order to weed out candidates who do not enjoy support in the districts among municipal deputies,” Reut explained.

In early May, Deputy Minister of Justice of Russia Oleg Sviridenko at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum declaredthat the legislation on foreign agents can be supplemented with the category of “third parties” – those who help foreign agents to violate the law on control over them. Sviridenko explained that the initiative concerns those “third parties” who are not foreign agents and may “not even be affiliated” with them.

The status of a foreign agent in Russian legislation appeared in 2012 along with changes in the law on NGOs, it has been assigned to the media since 2017, to individuals – since 2020. A new register of foreign agents appeared on April 5, 2022 – the Ministry of Justice enters into it those individuals who received funding from foreign sources and engaged in political activities. Now there are about 600 individuals and organizations in the register of foreign agents.