On 8 September 2019 Russia’s largest cities – Moscow and St. Petersburg – will hold elections, respectively, for the City Duma and municipal councils.
To the attention of:
Thomas Greminger, Secretary General, OSCE
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director, OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
George Tsereteli, President, OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
21 August 2019
APPEAL
On 8 September 2019 Russia’s largest cities – Moscow and St. Petersburg – will hold elections, respectively, for the City Duma and municipal councils. The preparation for the elections and actions by electoral commissions raise serious doubts over whether these elections will comply with the principles of fair competition.
In accordance with Paragraph 6 of the OSCE Copenhagen Document, Participating States have committed to respecting “the right of their citizens to take part in the governing of their country, either directly or through representatives freely chosen by them through fair electoral processes”. Paragraph 8 provides for the possibility of OSCE election observation in Participating States both on the national and sub-national levels. In recent years, the Organization has sent observers to local elections on numerous
occasions, including to Georgia (21 October and 12 November 2017), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (15 and 29 October 2017), and Albania (30 June 2019).
Given the situation with the upcoming elections in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and the fact that the Russian Federation, as an OSCE Participating State, has committed to holding free and competitive elections, we, the officially registered candidates for the Moscow City Duma and St. Petersburg municipal councils, propose that the OSCE send an observer mission to Russia to monitor the elections on 8 September 2019.
Candidates for the Moscow City Duma:
Daria BESEDINA (District #8)
Vladimir ZALISHCHAK (District #32)
Boris KAGARLITSKY (District #42)
Maksim KRUGLOV (District #14)
Mikhail TIMONOV (District #16)
Candidates for St. Petersburg municipal councils:
Yelena ANDREYEVA (Pulkovsky Meridian municipal district)
Olga BADANINA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Dmitry BERSENEV (Komendantsky Aerodrom municipal district)
Vladimir VOLSKY (Liteyny municipal district)
Aleksey VOROBYOV (Moskovskaya Zastava municipal district)
Georgy GLUKHOVSKY (Narodny municipal district)
Konstantin GOLOKTEYEV (Yuzhno Primorsky municipal district)
Yelizaveta GOLONSKAYA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Anton GORBUNOV (Smolninskoye municipal district)
Karina GREYKHANOVA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Natalya GRYAZNEVITCH (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Dmitry DAVYDOV (Akademicheskoye municipal district)
Lyubov DYUVE (Pargolovo municipal district)
Igor ZAINTCHUKOVSKY (Kolpino municipal district)
Aleksey ZAKHAROV (Ostrov Dekabristov municipal district)
Maksim IVANOV (Novoizmaylovskoye municipal district)
Anastasiya IZMAYKOVA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Pavel KALMYKOV (Akademicheskoye municipal district)
Inessa KALMYKOVA (Akademicheskoye municipal district)
Nikolay KAMILATOV (Ostrov Dekabristov municipal district)
Maria KARKAVTSEVA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Kseniya LAVROVA (Vladimirsky municipal district)
Yelena LARICHEVA (Malaya Okhta municipal district)
Oleg MAKSAKOV (municipal district #65)
Dmitry MARKEVICH (Liteyny municipal district)
Alexander MAKHANKOV (Pushkin municipal district)
Yuri MEREZHKO (Petergof municipal district)
Sergey MIKHEYEV (Sapsoniyevskoye municipal district)
Vladimir MYASNIKOV (Uritsk municipal district)
Lyudmila NAUMENKO (Bolshaya Okhta municipal district)
Ivetta NIKITINA (Ligovka Yamskaya municipal district)
Dmitry NIKOLAYEV (Yugo Zapad municipal district)
Maria NOVIKOVA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Mikhail PETROV (Admiralteysky municipal district)
Andrei PIVOVAROV (municipal district #78)
Anastasiya RODINA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Alexander SAFRONOV (municipal district #78)
Polina SIZOVA (Malaya Okhta municipal district)
Ilya SIYALOV (Porokhovye municipal district)
Ivan SOROKIN (Ligovka Yamskaya municipal district)
Alexandra STUDENIKINA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Alexander SYCHYOV (Murino municipal district)
Dayana TOROPOVA (Dvortsovy municipal district)
Vyacheslav TUTUSHKIN (Ozero Dolgoye municipal district)
Andrei FEDYAYEV (Vasilyevsky municipal district)
Maksim KHALIMOVSKY (Malaya Okhta municipal district)
Ivan CHIKHNYAYEV (Komendantsky Aerodrom municipal district)
Aleksey KHLEBAYEV (municipal district #54)
Pavel KHUSU (Vvedensky municipal district)
Ivan CHEBOTAR (Smolninskoye municipal district)
Tatiana SHISHOVA (Pushkin municipal district)
Nikita YUFEREV (Smolninskoye municipal district)
This Article first appeared in Russian at Echo of Moscow.
Photo: OSCE/Mikhail Evstafiev