Autographs are not taken from “New People” – Newspaper Kommersant No. 156 (7357) dated 08/26/2022

On Thursday, the Pskov City Court appointed a handwriting examination on the suit of the regional election commission seeking to remove the list of candidates from the New People party from the elections to the Pskov City Duma. Earlier, experts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs found in the documents of six nominees signatures allegedly made by one person, which gives grounds for removing the entire list. Duma “newcomers” believe that the authorities are afraid of them, and the expert says that the pressure plays into the hands of the “New People”, which, thanks to this, acquire the image of the opposition.

At a meeting on August 25, the Pskov City Court appointed a new verification of the signatures of candidates from the “New People” in the forensic center (EKC) of the regional department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The initial handwriting examination, which was carried out in the city ECC and revealed invalid autographs, that is, allegedly made by one person, raised doubts among the judge and the prosecutor: the interrogated forensic expert could not explain exactly how he carried it out. At the same time, the party members provided the court with the results of an independent examination, and its conclusion states that the signatures were made without violations. The next meeting is scheduled for August 29th.

Problems with nomination to the Pskov City Duma began with the New People from the moment they applied for registration. On July 22, the Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC) excluded 10 people from the list and registered only 22 candidates. Claims arose against several signatures allegedly affixed to the documents of different candidates by one person. On August 4, the Pskov City Court declared the decision of the TEC illegal and ordered that the list be restored in its original form – in the amount of 32 people.

However, already on August 7, the police came to the candidates with a check of their election documents. The party immediately called it an attempt to intimidate its supporters: “Obviously, our victory in court greatly upset the local authorities. They are carefully studying the data of closed polls and see how many residents of Pskov want to renew the City Duma and are ready to support New People.” On August 10, on the basis of personal statements, three candidates were excluded from the party list. All of them were part of territorial groups, which could not contain less than two people, so the registration of their “neighbors” who remained alone in groups was also canceled. After that, 26 candidates remained on the list.

The head of the party’s executive committee, Oleg Zakharov, told Kommersant that they were forced to sign statements on the withdrawal of candidates from the elections, and this was done at the initiative of the vice-governor for domestic policy, Alexander Seravin. “When people are called, they come to work, they are frightened by the police and criminal cases, they are invited to the city administration and offered to film, reminding them that they still have to live in this region, they can be understood,” Mr. Zakharov said. Mr. Seravin, in a conversation with Kommersant, called these accusations “lies.” “I heard from you for the first time that they say that about me. You know, unverified information is often written about me, and then I sort out the lies in my social networks, ”the official said.

On August 16, the TEC decided to apply to the Pskov city court with a demand to cancel the registration of the entire list of “New People”. “Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the city of Pskov carried out handwriting studies of documents, as a result of which it was established that the signatures in the applications of six candidates were not made by these persons with their own hands,” the decision of the TEC says. Since there were only two candidates in many territorial groups of the “New People” list, after deducting these six people, eight out of 15 groups become “incomplete”, and for the list to be registered, it must have at least eight groups. TEC explained its previous decision to register the list of the party by the fact that at that time it did not have “relevant reliable information about the existence of unconditional grounds for excluding candidates from the list of candidates.” In this regard, the electoral commission asked the court to recognize the previous decision as illegal.

According to Oleg Zakharov, in a situation where the Pskov “Yabloko” was “practically crushed by the authorities”, “New People” became the number one opposition party in the region. “Our party is the real opposition, and now it takes the place of Yabloko in the region. We say things that are inconvenient for the authorities, and they want to “put us in our place.” The current authorities do not even need a systemic opposition, although we evaluate any decisions of the authorities and give our constructive proposals,” the party member notes.

Vice-President of the Russian Association of Political Consultants Pyotr Bystrov believes that such pressure has already played into the hands of the New People. “I think that thanks to this story, New People became famous in the Pskov region. This conflict did them good. The hypothesis that this pressure is a subtle political technology move on the part of the administration is quite viable. As for Yabloko, it no longer has the previous level of electoral support in the Pskov region, including due to its negative attitude towards a special military operation, ”the expert believes.

Oleg Dilimbetov, St. Petersburg